Parenting is no small challenge. It gets even trickier when it comes to leaving your kids in the care of another person; you can never be certain a total stranger has your child’s best interests at heart.
That’s the position one mother found herself in back in 2003. Except she wasn’t just leaving her daughter with a stranger at a daycare: she was handing her child over to someone she’d never met, in a foreign airport, with her daughter’s life hanging in the balance.
Since emigrating from Sierra Leone, Zainab Sesay’s whole life had changed. She’d gotten married, started a successful career as a technical writer, and most importantly, she gave birth to a beautiful daughter named Maya. But there was something she still wanted.
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In 2003, Zainab decided it was important for Maya to see where her mother spent the first ten years of her life. Zainab herself hadn’t been back to her home country since she left for Maryland decades before.
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So, with a smile and a Hello Kitty bag in tow, Maya joined her mother on a trip across the Atlantic. But the two had no idea the kind of adventure they were in for.
See, Sierra Leone had just gone through an 11-year civil war, and people were struggling. The country was devastated, and Zainab hadn’t realized how different it would be from the place she left as a child.
Strategy & Tactics Magazine
Once they arrived it was quite an adjustment for Maya, to be sure. But Zainab hadn’t realized how difficult it would be for her to acclimate. It was a much different life than she’d known in Maryland.
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They washed their clothes outside, used generators for lighting, and played soccer with a ball made from a bag of dirt. With time, the two adjusted, but soon, something threw a wrench into the workings of their happy new life.
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After five months, Maya had a medical emergency and had to get back to the United States — pronto. Zainab couldn’t afford two tickets, but she knew her mother back home could pick Maya up wherever she landed. She just needed to find someone to take her.
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When Zainab and Maya arrived at the airport, Zainab frantically searched for someone traveling to America. She approached dozens of people, but no one wanted to be responsible for a small child for almost 7,500 miles of air travel.
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Desperate, Zainab approached a representative for Brussels Airlines, but the agent refused to help; it would have violated policy. But seeing how frantic this mother was, the representative discreetly motioned to a male passenger seated at the gate.
Wall Street Journal
The representative knew the man wasn’t in the best emotional state to accompany a child overseas. See, his only living grandmother had just passed away, and he was headed home to attend her funeral. But Zainab approached him anyway.
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The man was Tom Perriello, an American lawyer in Sierra Leone helping the country prosecute war criminals after the civil war. He was, naturally, drained from years of emotionally demanding work, so you can imagine his surprise when a young woman approached him at the airport.
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Zainab explained the situation to Tom, but he was wary of getting involved in a trafficking scam and declined. But when the mother wouldn’t relent and continued to plead with him, he knew she genuinely needed the help and accepted.
Washington Times
It was a huge relief for Zainab, but it wasn’t until her daughter boarded the plane with the stranger that it dawned on her. “Oh my god, I don’t even know this guy,” she realized. “I didn’t take any of his information. I had no clue how to reach him.”
On the plane was the last time Zainab saw the man, and once it took off, all she could do was hope and wait. But late that night, Zainab woke up to the sound of a phone ringing. It was her mother with grave news: things weren’t going according to plan.
See, Tom and Maya had been stopped in Côte d’Ivoire. Tom didn’t have the paperwork required to prove he was permitted to accompany Maya, and without that, they had to send her back to Sierra Leone. Zainab’s plan was on the verge of falling apart.
It was a race against time. Zainab had 24 hours to provide the paperwork, but without access to email or a fax machine in Sierra Leone, it seemed hopeless. Zainab’s only hope was that her mother could somehow save the day.
Zainab stayed awake all night waiting for the call. As the hours crept by, she grew more and more frightened that something terrible had happened. When the phone finally rang, it was her mother with more news.
Maya was headed to America! That day, Tom and Maya crossed the Atlantic and landed in Virginia, where Maya’s grandmother drove to pick her up. She thanked Tom, they hugged, and just like that he was gone. Zainab still didn’t even know his name.
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Over the next several years, both Zainab and Maya tried to find the man to thank him for saving Maya’s life, but without a name, it seemed impossible. Zainab had even started to forget what he looked like.
Christian Science Monitor
It wasn’t until 15 years later that a mutual connection of Zainab and Tom started to put the puzzle pieces together. Based on the few details, they deduced Tom’s identity. But when Zainab learned who that man had become, she was blown away.
Collegiate Times
As it turned out, Tom wasn’t just a lawyer. Since he’d returned from Africa, Tom had gone on to become a congressman, work at the State Department, and was nearly elected Governor of Virginia!
The Nation
But what shocked Zainab most weren’t his titles or his reputation. When they finally got in touch, Tom told her all about the songs he tried to sing for Maya in Krio to stop her from crying. But what Zainab learned next nearly brought her to tears.
CBS News
By accompanying Maya safely home, Tom had missed his connecting flight and wasn’t able to attend his grandmother’s funeral. “I was so saddened,” Zainab said. “He is a godsend to me and my family.”
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But Tom didn’t regret for a minute the sacrifice he made and cherished being able to see Maya reunite with her own grandmother. “One of the happier moments in my life was seeing Maya run into her grandmother’s arms,” he said.
Maya, too, was thrilled she could reconnect and solve the mystery of the man who saved her life. When they finally met in person in 2019, it was like a weight had been lifted. “It’s just been this ghost of a person, 15 years,” she said. “I want to just hug him, hug him tightly. And thank him.”
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