The inability and helplessness to get out of a difficult situation can lead a human to do things that can have dire consequences. Usually, when the time is difficult, people tend to make the worst decisions of their lives, which they regret later.
In 2003, Zainab Sesay faces a situation which she has no solution for, and she ends up placing her 5-year-old daughter in the hands of a total stranger. Something so unforeseen occurs that Zainab tries to track the person down, but succeeds in doing so only after 15 years.
What could the terrible situation be that Zainab was forced to take such a step against her daughter? And why did she have to track the stranger down?
Zainab Sesay had come from her hometown, Sierra Leone, in 1993 and was currently residing in America. She had not been home for ten years and in 2003, she decided that she would visit her hometown and stay there for 6 months.
Zainab had a 5-year-old daughter Maya Hughes, who was going to accompany her mother to Africa this time. And her trip to Africa changed her life forever since it won't go as was planned by the mother-daughter duo.
After Zainab and Maya had been in Africa for four months out of the six that they had decided, Maya started falling ill. She suffered a medical emergency and it was more than important for her to go back to the United States for her treatment. As Zainab told in her own words, "It was a life-and-death type situation."
The problem seemed to have no easy solution. Maya had to return to the United States and Zainab, on the other hand, was caught in the middle of family problems and the responsibility of Maya. She could not understand what to do.
Since Zainab had not been to Sierra Leone for ten years, there was a lot that she had to tackle after being there. Complicated family concerns had been doing rounds in Zainab's life and a lot of relationships were at stake. She knew that if she would leave Africa this time too, she would lose more than what she could imagine.
Zainab had to choose between the situations. Ultimately, she bought her five-year little girl a one-way ticket to the United States. Yes, she was going to let her travel all alone. Zainab knew the decision was not an easy one, but she had decided to find a way out.
Poor Zainab was aware that the decision she had made was not really a possible one. How would a 5-year-old travel on the plane alone? And to make things even more difficult, the flight was not a direct flight but the one with connections, with multiple layovers.
Zainab reached the airport with Maya and she could only think of one possible thing to do, to find a chaperone. She had hopes that somebody would agree upon escorting Maya overseas. She started asking random people who were at the airport if they could help her.
Nobody wanted to take the chance and take Maya along. Zainab was having a hard time finding one kind person, everyone had some excuse or the other to make. But she was not going to give up and went to the gate agent.
The gate agent pointed towards a man who was standing in the waiting area and was also flying to the United States. Zainab told the Huffington Post in 2018 that the agent reportedly stated, “Well, you know, that white guy over there is traveling."
Zainab Sesay ran to the man and explained her situation to him. She said, "I went to him to pose him the most insane question anyone could possibly ask.” The man pretended like he was listening to Zainab very carefully but he seemed really lost.
He told Zainab that "he was in no mental state to travel with a minor because he had just lost his grandmother". He had come to the Airport and was flying back to the United States to attend the funeral of his grandmother.
After Zainab had heard his answer and turned to walk away, she heard him call her back. He thought about something and then immediately agreed upon taking Maya along with him and being her chaperone. Zainab couldn't believe her luck.
Zainab gave Maya's hand into the man's hand and told her to be obedient. She bid her goodbye and went to the other corner of the airport as she watched the plane take off. This could be her last goodbye to her only daughter.
It was only after the plane had taken off that Zainab realized that she did not even ask the name of the person under whose supervision she had sent her daughter overseas. She was so tensed and occupied in her own thoughts about Maya's health that she forgot about something so basic as well.
“All of a sudden, the adrenaline kind of went away, and I realized, ‘Oh, my God, I just handed my only child at the time to a complete stranger,’” Sesay told the Huffington Post. Had she made the right decision or was she going to regret it for the rest of her life?
Maya, on the other hand, went away with the man. She sat in the plane and was going to be on an 8,941-miles-long journey with a stranger whom she had never even seen before. The cabin crew came to know that he had accepted to babysit the girl, and they helped him in his efforts to make the girl comfortable. But the man had other plans.
To the cabin crew, it seemed like Maya was having a difficult time during her flight back to the United States. She looked as if she was in the middle of chaos and was crying a lot. Everyone around her was trying to calm her down, but in vain. What had made Maya cry so much?
The man had tried to soothe Maya down with all the ways he could have possibly known because he could see that the eyes of all the passengers were on him and Maya. He even sang her a song in Kreyo, which was Maya's local language in Africa. But Maya was just a screaming and crying 5-year-old.
The man and Maya finally reached Dulles International Airport, on the outskirts of Washington D.C. Zainab had a word with her mother who lived near Washington D.C. and told her that Maya would be reaching home.
Maya's grandmother drove to the airport in excitement to meet her granddaughter. As soon as Maya saw her grandmother, she ran towards her and hugged her tightly. Was something wrong? Maya certainly did not look happy.
One month after Maya had come from Africa, Zainab also returned. She asked her daughter everything about the man, but Maya did not speak much. And Zainab did not force her since she was only a little child.
As days passed, Zainab's urge to find who the chaperone was, increased. She really wanted to know, but had no clue where to start from. His identity had become a mystery and it was impossible to find him. Until...
One day, Zainab told the man and Maya's story to a cousin of her's. It turned out that her cousin had already heard a similar kind of story from a colleague of her's. Sesay told the Huffington Post, “[My cousin] said, ‘Hey, Zainab, did you ever track Tom Perriello down?’ And I said, ‘Who’s that?’”
Zainab Sesay's cousin then revealed that Tom Perriello was “the guy who you said brought Maya back. Remember? I told you he’s a colleague of a colleague.” After 15 long years, Zainab had finally known the name of the kind man who had taken care of her daughter.
The cousin gave Zainab Perriello's contact information and Zainab immediately sent in a long mail to him, explaining him and giving every little detail of the meeting with him at the airport. And before pressing 'send', she wrote an apology in case Tom Perriello was not the person to have taken care of Maya.
Sesay received a reply a few days after she had sent the mail to Perriello. He had confirmed in the mail that he had been the same guy who had accompanied Maya from Africa to the United States back in 2003. And as Zainab read the mail, she said, "I jumped out of my seat."
Since 15 years of his kind favor to Zainab and Maya, Perriello had followed a great and successful career. He had been a part of politics as well as public services. He had led the advocacy efforts of the Center for American Progress, had served as a Congressman for Virginia and had worked under the Obama Administration as a special envoy in the State Department.
When Zainab and Maya had met Perriello back in 2003, he had been working for the United Nations as a spokesperson and advisor. And he was in Sierra Leone because he had to take part in a U.N. war crimes tribunal.
So when Zainab and Maya had met Perrielli, he was not only traumatized because of his grandmother's death but was also occupied by the tensions of the work. But he had still agreed upon taking the young girl along with him.
Perriello told BuzzFeed News, “There was some serious drama on each leg of the trip, as there should have been under the circumstances, but we worked with officials and some angels at the airlines to make sure Maya got home safely to her grandmother’s care.”
Perriello had been very kind to have agreed upon taking Maya along with him to the United States. And the best part was that he said, "One of the happier moments in my life was seeing Maya run into her grandmother’s arms."
But there was one thing that neither Zainab nor Maya knew about Perriello. The man had to leave the airport's arrival area to make sure that Maya meets her grandmother. And after Maya was in her grandmother's arms, Perriello went back inside the airport, and then he suffered..
After Perriello went inside the airport, he knew he would have to go through security checks yet again. And the process is time-consuming, because of which, he ended up missing his flight. He knew he would have to face a delay, but he went ahead and knew that his priority was Maya at the time.
“That really dampened my heart. It was horrible – I didn’t realize,” Zainab told the Huffington Post when she came to know about the truth that Perriello could not make it to his grandmother's funeral even though he had been to the airport only for this purpose.
Maya took the whole story to twitter after she came to know the whole truth. “My mom has been trying to find this man for 15 years – we never got his name or anything,” she tweeted. “My mom emailed him, and this man remembered everything. He said he never forgot about me or the songs he was [trying] to sing in Krio… He had told his family about it and everything.”
“There’s a HUGE possibility I wouldn’t be here today if this man didn’t bring me back over here. Finding him after 15 years is really [crazy] because I thought about it a lot. He didn’t have to help me. He didn’t owe me anything. I’m so, so grateful!” Maya concluded.
The twitter post went viral and a lot of people commented on it. And one most important comment was from Perriello himself. He commented, "One of the craziest experiences of my entire life is now a Twitter thread, and I could not be happier to know you are shining bright, Maya!”
Maya and her mother had only one purpose of sharing their story with the world. They wanted people to know that kindness still prevailed in people. She told BuzzFeed News, “He’s genuinely a good person, which is something we don’t have a lot of anymore.”
“For 15 years I was looking for this ghost,” Zainab Sesay said. “I hope to meet with him to get the opportunity to shake his hand, hug him and thank him for having done that.” And indeed, Perriello did an exceptionally kind favor and people like him need to be appreciated.