The Man And The Myth

The world should have known that there was something special about this Tumisang Ramarea kid. After all even the South African people chose the same day he was born to inaugurate Nelson Mandela as their first democratically elected president. He came with a new chapter for South Africans. Stories from the first 5 years of his life suggest he was a bright, inquisitive fellow. Not afraid to inquire at length on difficult questions, such as where babies came from. He is also said to have enjoyed listening to and singing along to love songs. A particular favorite of his around 1999 was "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend" by Don Williams. Whether this was his way of processing his father's recent death or a foreshadowing to a life filled with heart break and trauma, nobody can say for sure. In those days, he was a happy child who had earned the nickname "Radio Botswana" for his constant chatter. 

In the year 2000, Ramarea was taught to read, write, and count by one of his older brothers as his family could not afford to enroll him in pre-primary school. So upon entering school in 2001, he was already ahead of his peers. He was more competent than those students who had gone to pre-school. Being the restless and talkative child he was, his teachers kept him occupied by assigning him more advanced reading and writing work. As a result, the advantage he had when he entered school continued to increase. Throughout his time at Mafhikana Primary School he was always ahead of his class. In fact some teachers felt he was too far ahead that he should be allowed to skip a grade. However, his mother insisted he stay with his class. Even during the two years that he attended the Philip Moshotle Memorial Primary School in the capital city, 2005 and 2006, he was still at the top of his class. He passed his Primary School Leaving Examinations with flying colors, meeting everyone's expectation that he was going to come first. 

He continued his academic domination at Mookami Junior Secondary School. While he was the undisputed overall best student for all the three years, there was some fierce competition for the second spot in the school. Even the one time that he got a 33% in a Design and Technology examination, his score was still the best in the whole school in the subject. The second best score was rumored to be around 17%, but don't quote me on this. Ramarea was confident in his position, that he almost never cared how far or close behind the second best person was. In fact, he only competed with his own scores. He was consistently trying to beat his own best scores. With school pretty much handled, Ramarea devoted a significant amount of time to extra curricular activities: debate, student government, and dating. Being the finest boy in his village, mostly because of his brains and the future earning potential that implied, he was very successful in his dating endeavors. It could also be that the experience of starting ahead of most of his peers in 2004, also gave him an added advantage. Perhaps the extra curricular activities were a distraction to him, as in the Junior Certificate Examination he failed to earn at least 86% average across all his subjects to get a Merit pass. Instead he got 84.97%, securing an A. His well wishers were satisfied as he had managed to remain the best student in his school. But to himself, he had failed.

Ramarea entered senior secondary school with the odds stacked against him. First and foremost, he was to attend one of the worst performing schools in the country: Seepapitso Senior Secondary School. Seepapitso was not always such a sad school, it had its glory days. But having failed his JC Exam, Ramarea understood better than anyone that the old glory days did not mean much. Secondly, there was the worst public servants strike in the history of the country. This meant that teachers in public schools like Seepapitso were  away for over 2 months. This was time that students were not getting taught. By some strike of fortune, all but one of Ramarea's teachers had not participated in the strike. So with the exception of the two weeks that all the students in the school were suspended as a result of students protesting to have their teachers return, their education continued. Ramarea recruited a few of his friends to form a study group to prepare for their General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations. He was also able to win favor with his teachers, who supported his efforts to defy the odds and get the 48 possible points from the exam when he finished. He had his eyes set on the prestigious Top Achievers Scholarship from the Botswana Government. After a lifetime of deciding between the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, he had settled on Oxford. 

Having made peace with his fate at Seepapitso, he turned it into his own success story. He rose through the ranks of student leadership, quickly becoming the president of the student council. His Vice President and Deputy President, were both his friends. As such they ran the school. This was in addition to all his other extra curricular activities: debate, environmental club, and helping raise funds for his friend, the late Deputy President Batho Madigele (MHSRIP). It was a busy time, but he was never busy enough for some romance in his life. If he ever thought he was going to marry one of his childhood girlfriends, his time at Seepapitso would be that moment. As though all of this was not enough, Ramarea decided in his second (and last) year that he was going to enroll in Additional Mathematics. A lot of people were dropping the subject because they claimed it was hard. With his usual "can-do" attitude, he approached the teacher for the class and challenged him to let Ramarea take the exam with the class. If he got at least 16% without studying and without having been to class, the teacher was to let him into the class. He scored 39%, performing better than 75% of the class. He was in. He would go on to give the top students in the class a run for their money. In the end, Ramarea got 47 points instead of 48. 47 points was a great result for Seepapitso, but to Ramarea, he had failed an exam once again. 

Failing to get 48 points meant Ramarea's dream of studying abroad had gone down the drain. He was depressed and those around him felt he was being ungrateful. After all, he was eligible for a government scholarship to study anything he wanted at the best universities in Botswana. Botswana was his oyster, but he wanted the world. One of his friends, Kago Rose Ofitlhile, told him about the United World College Scholarship. He was not really interested in doing high school again. But he still applied, among the many foreign scholarship applications he submitted. He was determined to study abroad. He was raised by his teachers and community to believe that he was too smart for the local universities. So he had to go abroad one way or the other. All the scholarship applications fell through except for the United World Colleges. He was accepted into the United World College of Costa Rica. Then he could rest and enjoy his job. For the interim period between finishing the exams in November 2012 and continuing his academic journey in August 2013, he had found employment with UCMAS. UCMAS was a formative experience for him, you should ask him about it if you ever get a chance to chat with him. 

He arrived in Costa Rica a month later than his peers, after having navigated a difficult visa process by himself.  A process so difficult he had to make a dangerous bus ride to Johannesburg to the Costa Rican Consulate and ended up robbed at knife point in a crowded bus terminal. He swore never to travel to Johannesburg by bus again. To this day, Ramarea travels to Johannesburg by air only and does not use public transit. Costa Rica was difficult in the beginning. It was the boy's first time being so far from home. It was an especially difficult time to be away from home as his mother - his rock and shelter - was in the early stages of her early onset dementia. It seemed as though everyone had found their friend groups. For the first time in his life, he was behind on academics. It was the first time he studied alongside such a high calibre of students, students who were big deals where they came from. On top of that, he was not as smooth with the ladies as he had been in his village of Kanye. It was a lonely existence. His life was confined to the perimeter of the school as he did not speak a word of Spanish. For the first time in his life, he was a minority. Everything he thought he knew about himself and the world was challenged. 

As with everything, the dark days ended. With his charisma, he was able to surround himself with a loving community. He did his best at school and was not too bad. He was not the best student by any measure, but he put in the work and he had study mates. He was involved in extra curricular activities and the school life in general. In no time, he even had a community outside the school. Between his church friends - oh yes, he became religious in Costa Rica - and his MUN friends, he did not have to live a prisoner's life. While the end of his time in Costa Rica was punctuated by a traumatic incident that happened to him through his connection to the church, he would describe his time at the International Baptist Church of Costa Rica as fulfilling. When he graduated, he had accepted a place at Stanford University. You should ask him to tell you how he almost did not apply to Stanford because failing to get the Top Achievers' Scholarship had really knocked the confidence with which he moved around the world. But he was going to Stanford on a MasterCard Foundation Scholarship. Is this kid lucky, or what?

That summer Ramarea went to Macedonia for a conference with some of his classmates from UWC. He could not find sponsorship, so he borrowed money from another friend from UWC. He figured since he is always so lucky, he was going to be able to repay the guy his $800. He was raised not to owe people, but he figured since he studied abroad he was no longer poor and did not need to abide by the rules of poverty. The trip to Macedonia was amazing - featuring some near romantic encounters and some strong liquor named rakija. That trip was also the first time Ramarea flew Emirates. (For the 4 years from then on he did not fly on any other airline, except to places where Emirates did not fly. As a relatively broke graduate student, he was forced to consider other airlines as he was a bit more price sensitive.) The trip ended, and he had to repay his friend - except he barely had any money. His family was not going to help him because he did not consult any of them before taking the loan. On the advice of his sister, he used whatever money he had, to buy some chicken from a poultry abattoir in the city and sell in his village. He offered free delivery. It was decent business, but it was not going to raise $800. Even with this knowledge, he pushed through. In the end, his family had to bail him out. But he had learned an important lesson, don't get in debt without a payment plan. 

Stanford! Never has this young man been in a place filled with so much privilege and so much opportunity. It was a very fast paced place. With each academic quarter lasting only 10 weeks, but the content of those 10 weeks being about 6 months worth of material, Ramarea feels as though he has lived a few lifetimes during his 4 years of undergrad at Stanford. The academics were intense, but he hung on. After UWC, he was more at peace with other people being smarter and more accomplished than him. Although I will admit it made him a bit too indifferent. He felt a different kind of imposter syndrome. The traditional imposter syndrome is one where someone feels like they are a fraud and they should not be in a place, and live in fear of being found out. His was slightly different. He felt that since he applied to Stanford as an after thought - and mostly out of fear of regretting not applying - he felt that he was not meant to be there. But he was glad he was, and treated it mostly as an adventure. For the most part, he sought to pursue things that he was curious about. Within weeks of his arrival, he declared his major as Mathematical and Computational Science. He loved Mathematics, was curious about Engineering, so it was a good fit. After looking at the classes, he knew they were going to challenge him but he was not trying to have a perfect GPA or anything of the sort. So he went along for the ride. 

Upon arrival at Stanford, he was suddenly faced with new identities. Suddenly he was black - and was just getting used to being African from his time in Costa Rica. He was also first generation and low income. Except with the MasterCard Foundation Scholarship, he was a well resourced low income student. He also had a campus job, so except for the money he had to send home to help his family take care of his mother, he was balling. After all, he grew up with very little. So he was already used to surviving on little. His biggest expense during his time at Stanford was buying Emirates flights to go home to go check on his mother. Even then, he was not always paying the full amount as he had found a way to fit visits home into his other Stanford sponsored trips. And he did travel quite a bit during his time at Stanford. Navigating these new identities, making sense of his mother's deteriorating health, and healing from the traumatic experience from the tail end of his time in Costa Rica, forced him to reach out to the resources at his disposal. He was fortunate to have a long term clinician to help him through. He remains grateful to the help of this clinician, who helped him figure out some of life's complex questions. Not many Stanford students are this lucky when it comes to accessing mental health resouces. Is this kid lucky, or what?

Ramarea spent part of his first summer in Sri Lanka on an overseas seminar studying Community Health. At the time, he was interested in health insurance and making quality healthcare accessible to vulnerable populations. However, while there, he was impressed by how their community partner, Sarvodaya, had contributed to development efforts in Sri Lanka through their community driven Shramadana movement. This reminded him of traditional Tswana forms of cooperation that he had always learned of in school. Curious to study how indigenous forms of knowledge can be used to solve problems faced by societies today, he returned to Sri Lanka in the summer of 2017 on a Cardinal Quarter Fellowship through the Haas Center for Public Service. Most of the work he did was with the Executive Director on their online tools and databases. He returned from Sri Lanka with two new questions. The first was from his direct work, after observing how the organization underutilized its technologies, he was left wondering how similar organizations can better harness advancements in technology to eliminate inefficiencies in their operations. The second question, sparked by observations of the Sarvodaya Development Finance model, was about how we can formalize and scale traditional forms of economic exchange in emerging markets to ensure our financial systems were inclusive. After these two experiences in Sri Lanka, he began to question whether he was interested in pursuing a PhD. So he did the next logical thing, he applied to do research with two of his favorite academic mentors: Prof. Pam Hinds and (Dr.) Tim Weiss. The experience affirmed that he is interested in working on issues affecting the emerging economies. However, the slow and tedious nature of the research process did not appeal to him. 

Having spent his summers in the pursuit of knowledge, Ramarea was unprepared for the job market when his final year at Stanford came up. He knew he wanted to do a masters degree at some point, so he applied for a Masters Degree at Stanford. He had no idea how he was going to pay for it, given that his generous scholarship was not extendable. He got in and was able to find a way to afford Stanford. Is this kid lucky, or what? In his undergraduate, Ramarea was involved in a few extra curricular activities including as an RA for two years at Crothers. In his second year, he was also an ethnic theme student in Ujamaa (the unofficial black dorm), where he sought to explore his newfound black identity. He was also present in the African Students Association. However, his campus job is the one community into which he poured most of his energy. For that reason, he rose through the ranks at the Stanford Center for Professional Development. Stanford was also punctuated by a few failed romantic pursuits. The hope is that the boy learned something from those experiences. 

As he looks forward to his graduate career at Stanford, he can't help but marvel at the story of the man. It is from this story, that the myth of the man is derived. A myth that has painted the man as one who has never allowed dating to distract him in the eyes of most Kanye parents. A myth that he never broke a single rule at school. Although he was often in trouble for non-academic issues, ranging from a failure to comb his hair to sometimes taking more slices of bread than he was due in the tea line. The myth of the man paints a story where the man dared to dream and everything worked out. But the story of the man is one of countless failure and some serious grind. The myth paints the man to have always known what he wanted, but reality is the man is constantly updating his interests the more he discover the many things he does not know. Even in this present moment, the man is working to figure out what his next steps are after Stanford 2.0. He can promise it will be a worthwhile adventure, wherever the road leads. The man does not claim perfection, but he promises to always pursue excellence: in character as in work.