The Man Who Swam From Africa to Harvard

Anton N. Quist is hungry.

This morning he woke up at 6 a.m., as usual, and cycled 40 miles, out to Concord and Lexington and back. In four years, he has seen most of Eastern Massachusetts: the ball fields and the town dumps and the reservoirs and the small airfields. On some day his trek stretches 60, even 70 miles.

We meant to go to the International House of Pancakes but took a wrong turn and ended up in Watertown. "No matter," says Quist. Friendly's will do for lunch. Quist. skipped breakfast this morning and decides on what to order before I've opened my menu. Ten minutes later, Tammy brings me any hamburger and fries but keeps Anton waiting. I'm a little embarrassed by the situation, a passing metaphor for our respective home continents: he is hungry, I am not. I have food, he does not. Quist, born in Great Britain, is a citizen of Ghana, a country along the west coast of Africa.

Quist speaks with a thick, richly layered voice--a voice resonant with the melodic rhythm of Jamaica, the bass note of Ghana, the clipped, soproper pronunciation of the BBC, and clangy Americanisms picked up during four years of college. He can be loud when he want. At the Union dining hall, friends used to ask him to get the attention of someone at the far end of the hall, which he would do with a shout. He is of medium height, muscled so that people ask what sport he plays, thinking maybe soccer, maybe track, maybe boxing. He wears shorts almost always, even in winter. Walk with him through Harvard Yard, and it seems that everyone knows him and that he knows everybody.

During Orientation Week four years ago, someone asked Quist how he had come over from Africa.

"Without thinking, I told the fellow, 'I swam," Quist says. "After that, of course, I had to keep it up. I told him that Texaco had funded the whole thing. That first they flew me to the Liberian coast, where I waded out into the ocean and started swimming west. A boat followed me and picked me up at night so I could sleep, butanchored so I could start in the same place thenext day. I said the whole trip took about two anda half weeks.

"The guy just said 'Wow' and walked away."

For his first few weeks in Cambridge, Quistshrugged off questions about his homeland withlight-hearted wisecracks. When asked about thehousing situation in Africa, he replied, "Oh,there is a real tree shortage these days. It'sgetting so crowded that whole families have toshare a branch."

Eventually, a sense of duty overcame his loveof a joke, and he became more serious aboutanswering such questions. "Anyone who asked, Iwould sit them down and talk until they said,'Please Anton, let me go," Quist says. "Peoplethink that everyone in Africa is either fightingas rebel soldier or starving. 'That's all that yousee in the media. I realized that the myths aboutAfrica were a result of a lack of information."

He joined the Harvard African StudentsAssociation and served as treasurer and president.He introduced his roommates to Ghanian culturaldelights such as kenke, a hot, spicy fishsauce which they ate with their fingers off anewspaper spread on the common room floor. He sangfolk songs and performed the gumbut dancein the annual Cultural Rhythms show. he wrote forthe African Technology Review.

Quist wrote letter to the Admissions Office andlobbied for the recruitment and admission of moreAfricans. "Harvard likes to call itself aninternational university", says Quist. "But I amthe only member of our class who went to highschool in Africa. The other African students wentto high school abroad, in England or the States.Harvard seems to want Africa students to have someinternational experience before they come here,but I think we can manage. I mean, I've done allright."

At the age of 15, Quist did not expect tograduate from Harvard nine years later; he did notplan on going to college at all. "I was a naughtyboy," he says. "I was almost shot one time."Walking home with a friend after curfew on thestreets of Accra (the capital of Ghana), he waspassing the police headquarters and decided totake a closer look at a bronze plaque he had neverstudied before.

"My friend said, 'Anton, you don't want to dothat now.' But of course once I had it in mind Ihad to look at the plaque," Quist continues. "Thenall of a sudden I heard the sound of guns beingcocked. If I had moved they would have killed me,they are all so trigger-happy. They kept me injail all night long, sending me from room to room,asking me questions. The next morning the captaincame in and took one look at me and said, 'Gohome, kid. And stay out of trouble."

Quist did well enough in his boarding schoolclasses to enter the more prestigious tracks ofmath and physics, but academics were not hisprimary concern. "I was convinced that I wouldjust hang out and drive my dad's car," he says.Then he joined a production of Gilbert andSullivan's The Mikado, an this involvementgave him a new attitude. "I was amazed at how allthese people working together could create a showthat an audience would enjoy, how all this effortcould pay off."

Two years later, he was accepted into medicalschool, which in Ghana does not require anundergraduate degree. Higher education is free inGhana but demands two years of public service, andQuist spent one year after high school teachingclassical physics to eighth graders.

"I showed up and the headmaster gave me thetext and told me that I would start the next day,"Quist says. There was no lesson plan, no formaltraining. He had eight classes a day, 50 studentsper class. "They called me Mr. Quist. it waspretty cool."

There were difficulties at first. "I gave thefirst exam to all classes at once. Four hundredexams! I never finished correcting them all. Afterthat I staggered the tests." The laboratory was sohot that Quist says he turned the lights off tokeep the heat bearable. He arranged field trips tolocal factories and taught the text in his ownorder. "I love teaching," he says. "I'd like to doit again someday."

He finished the year of service and startedmedical school, but soon grew frustrated. Hedidn't particularly like his field of study, andstudents protests proved an annoying distraction.

"In America, student protestors get up andchant carry signs, you know, 'Stop the Gulf War.'Back home in Ghana, students burn cars. Theyprotest anything: cutbacks in scholarship money orgovernment repression."

During the protests, the governmentoccasionally shut down the university, sometimesfor months at a stretch, so that it took somestudents six years or more to earn anundergraduate degree.

Quist decided to change his major. Anacceptance letter from Harvard convinced him toleave Ghana as well. He says that to save oninternational postage, the admissions office senthim just one sheet of paper with some pictures ofHarvard and a list of activities, not the usualbulky envelop stuffed with fliers from everyextracurricular group. he got his first view ofHarvard as a member of dorm crew.

"I've always been a foreigner," says Quist. Hismother, a nurse from Jamaica, met his father, adoctor from Ghana, while the two were studying inEngland. Quist's family lived in a Midlands towncalled Lemmington Spa until he was eight, whenthey moved to Accra.

In England, he was an outsider, "the child offoreign-born parents." In Ghana, he was "thenewcomer from Britian." And when he came tocollege in America, he was "the internationalstudent." His brother and sister live in England,his parents live in Ghana, and he has relativesscattered around the globe.

"I feel that I could live anywhere," he says.Although he calls no place home, Quist seems ableto feel at home wherever he is.

He spent one winter vacation in Lake Nebagamon,Wisconsin at the home of his roommate, Thomas J.Norman '92. "When we talk about racial diversityback home, we mean there are Poles, Germans, andScandanavians," Norman says. "Everyone was reallytaken with Anton. They liked him so much that theyasked him to give a presentation to the town aboutAfrica. People crammed into a church basementwhere we taped up a map of Africa. Anton dressedup in his fugu, an African robe, and showedslides, sang the national anthem of Ghana, andtold some folktales."

Over lunch, Quist considers what activity hasmeant most to him at Harvard. He mulls it over,can't decide. "I guess what I've enjoyed most isthe way the community works," he finally says."I've been able to do lots of things, I've lovedthat."

Last fall, some friends suggested to Quist thathe run for class marshall, so he gathered togetherthe materials and handed them in two hours beforethe deadline. "I didn't realize that I would haveto work," he says. Today, after eating, he willmeet with Cara Dunne '92 to work on some skits forthe Senior Talent Show. He will make rain plansfor the cookout, make sure the DJ for theMoonlight cruise knows to arrive early, sellsweatshirts, answer questions about CommencementWeek activities, and return along string ofmessages that have built up on his answeringmachine.

"I'll sleep next week sometime", he says.

Quist has been so involved at Harvard, soactive in the community, that one might imaginefor a moment that he has been fabricated by somezealous publicist at the Harvard News Office orsome booster in Byerly Hall.

He has been active in the North House Committeeand President of Moors Hall. This year he helpedorganize "Wear-Your-Nametag Day" at North House,so that students would learn each other's names.

His first semester at Harvard, he auditionedfor the Mikado and got the title role.Since then he has performed in every Gilbert andSullivan show. He has also worked on the lightingcrew for three shows and directed a Nigerian play.As president of the Harvard African StudentsAssociation, he brought African guests to Harvardand organized an Africa Week, with speakers,music, food, and dances. He told African folktalesat Cultural Rhythms. (He did not learn the talefrom an elder back home during a smoky ritual,though. "I cheated," he says. "I found a book offolktales in narrative form in the stacks ofWidener.")

In boarding school, he used to get up at 5 a.m.every day and run a mile and a half. He kept thatregimen up for a while at Harvard until heswitched to cycling. "At first I cycled to getaround Boston, then to see Boston, and finallyjust because I enjoyed riding," he says. His finalsemester at Harvard he joined the Harvard cyclingteam to see what racing is like.

He has worked 10 to 20 hours a week everysemester for the Extension School. He started withfacilities, installing air conditioners, thenwrote computer software for two summers (he hadpractically never seen a computer before he cameto the States), and finally created his own job,running the Extension Focus Office in the ScienceCenter. He opens computer accounts and performssundry other duties for Extension School students.For the first week of the semester he works 40hours and then the demands drop dramatically, sohe is paid to study for three hours a day.

He was so busy last fall that he never gotaround to getting his picture taken for theyearbook. Asked how he likes to relax, Quist says,"I don't really like to relax. Do you relax? Forme every holiday is a chance to study."

BACK AT NORTH HOUSE. Quist asks me,"Have you ever seen someone jump chairs? I believeI am the champion chair-jumper at Harvard. Istarted when we were sitting around in the dininghall and we were boredE-6QUISTCrimsonWilliam H. BachmanANTON N. QUIST

"The guy just said 'Wow' and walked away."

For his first few weeks in Cambridge, Quistshrugged off questions about his homeland withlight-hearted wisecracks. When asked about thehousing situation in Africa, he replied, "Oh,there is a real tree shortage these days. It'sgetting so crowded that whole families have toshare a branch."

Eventually, a sense of duty overcame his loveof a joke, and he became more serious aboutanswering such questions. "Anyone who asked, Iwould sit them down and talk until they said,'Please Anton, let me go," Quist says. "Peoplethink that everyone in Africa is either fightingas rebel soldier or starving. 'That's all that yousee in the media. I realized that the myths aboutAfrica were a result of a lack of information."

He joined the Harvard African StudentsAssociation and served as treasurer and president.He introduced his roommates to Ghanian culturaldelights such as kenke, a hot, spicy fishsauce which they ate with their fingers off anewspaper spread on the common room floor. He sangfolk songs and performed the gumbut dancein the annual Cultural Rhythms show. he wrote forthe African Technology Review.

Quist wrote letter to the Admissions Office andlobbied for the recruitment and admission of moreAfricans. "Harvard likes to call itself aninternational university", says Quist. "But I amthe only member of our class who went to highschool in Africa. The other African students wentto high school abroad, in England or the States.Harvard seems to want Africa students to have someinternational experience before they come here,but I think we can manage. I mean, I've done allright."

At the age of 15, Quist did not expect tograduate from Harvard nine years later; he did notplan on going to college at all. "I was a naughtyboy," he says. "I was almost shot one time."Walking home with a friend after curfew on thestreets of Accra (the capital of Ghana), he waspassing the police headquarters and decided totake a closer look at a bronze plaque he had neverstudied before.

"My friend said, 'Anton, you don't want to dothat now.' But of course once I had it in mind Ihad to look at the plaque," Quist continues. "Thenall of a sudden I heard the sound of guns beingcocked. If I had moved they would have killed me,they are all so trigger-happy. They kept me injail all night long, sending me from room to room,asking me questions. The next morning the captaincame in and took one look at me and said, 'Gohome, kid. And stay out of trouble."

Quist did well enough in his boarding schoolclasses to enter the more prestigious tracks ofmath and physics, but academics were not hisprimary concern. "I was convinced that I wouldjust hang out and drive my dad's car," he says.Then he joined a production of Gilbert andSullivan's The Mikado, an this involvementgave him a new attitude. "I was amazed at how allthese people working together could create a showthat an audience would enjoy, how all this effortcould pay off."

Two years later, he was accepted into medicalschool, which in Ghana does not require anundergraduate degree. Higher education is free inGhana but demands two years of public service, andQuist spent one year after high school teachingclassical physics to eighth graders.

"I showed up and the headmaster gave me thetext and told me that I would start the next day,"Quist says. There was no lesson plan, no formaltraining. He had eight classes a day, 50 studentsper class. "They called me Mr. Quist. it waspretty cool."

There were difficulties at first. "I gave thefirst exam to all classes at once. Four hundredexams! I never finished correcting them all. Afterthat I staggered the tests." The laboratory was sohot that Quist says he turned the lights off tokeep the heat bearable. He arranged field trips tolocal factories and taught the text in his ownorder. "I love teaching," he says. "I'd like to doit again someday."

He finished the year of service and startedmedical school, but soon grew frustrated. Hedidn't particularly like his field of study, andstudents protests proved an annoying distraction.

"In America, student protestors get up andchant carry signs, you know, 'Stop the Gulf War.'Back home in Ghana, students burn cars. Theyprotest anything: cutbacks in scholarship money orgovernment repression."

During the protests, the governmentoccasionally shut down the university, sometimesfor months at a stretch, so that it took somestudents six years or more to earn anundergraduate degree.

Quist decided to change his major. Anacceptance letter from Harvard convinced him toleave Ghana as well. He says that to save oninternational postage, the admissions office senthim just one sheet of paper with some pictures ofHarvard and a list of activities, not the usualbulky envelop stuffed with fliers from everyextracurricular group. he got his first view ofHarvard as a member of dorm crew.

"I've always been a foreigner," says Quist. Hismother, a nurse from Jamaica, met his father, adoctor from Ghana, while the two were studying inEngland. Quist's family lived in a Midlands towncalled Lemmington Spa until he was eight, whenthey moved to Accra.

In England, he was an outsider, "the child offoreign-born parents." In Ghana, he was "thenewcomer from Britian." And when he came tocollege in America, he was "the internationalstudent." His brother and sister live in England,his parents live in Ghana, and he has relativesscattered around the globe.

"I feel that I could live anywhere," he says.Although he calls no place home, Quist seems ableto feel at home wherever he is.

He spent one winter vacation in Lake Nebagamon,Wisconsin at the home of his roommate, Thomas J.Norman '92. "When we talk about racial diversityback home, we mean there are Poles, Germans, andScandanavians," Norman says. "Everyone was reallytaken with Anton. They liked him so much that theyasked him to give a presentation to the town aboutAfrica. People crammed into a church basementwhere we taped up a map of Africa. Anton dressedup in his fugu, an African robe, and showedslides, sang the national anthem of Ghana, andtold some folktales."

Over lunch, Quist considers what activity hasmeant most to him at Harvard. He mulls it over,can't decide. "I guess what I've enjoyed most isthe way the community works," he finally says."I've been able to do lots of things, I've lovedthat."

Last fall, some friends suggested to Quist thathe run for class marshall, so he gathered togetherthe materials and handed them in two hours beforethe deadline. "I didn't realize that I would haveto work," he says. Today, after eating, he willmeet with Cara Dunne '92 to work on some skits forthe Senior Talent Show. He will make rain plansfor the cookout, make sure the DJ for theMoonlight cruise knows to arrive early, sellsweatshirts, answer questions about CommencementWeek activities, and return along string ofmessages that have built up on his answeringmachine.

"I'll sleep next week sometime", he says.

Quist has been so involved at Harvard, soactive in the community, that one might imaginefor a moment that he has been fabricated by somezealous publicist at the Harvard News Office orsome booster in Byerly Hall.

He has been active in the North House Committeeand President of Moors Hall. This year he helpedorganize "Wear-Your-Nametag Day" at North House,so that students would learn each other's names.

His first semester at Harvard, he auditionedfor the Mikado and got the title role.Since then he has performed in every Gilbert andSullivan show. He has also worked on the lightingcrew for three shows and directed a Nigerian play.As president of the Harvard African StudentsAssociation, he brought African guests to Harvardand organized an Africa Week, with speakers,music, food, and dances. He told African folktalesat Cultural Rhythms. (He did not learn the talefrom an elder back home during a smoky ritual,though. "I cheated," he says. "I found a book offolktales in narrative form in the stacks ofWidener.")

In boarding school, he used to get up at 5 a.m.every day and run a mile and a half. He kept thatregimen up for a while at Harvard until heswitched to cycling. "At first I cycled to getaround Boston, then to see Boston, and finallyjust because I enjoyed riding," he says. His finalsemester at Harvard he joined the Harvard cyclingteam to see what racing is like.

He has worked 10 to 20 hours a week everysemester for the Extension School. He started withfacilities, installing air conditioners, thenwrote computer software for two summers (he hadpractically never seen a computer before he cameto the States), and finally created his own job,running the Extension Focus Office in the ScienceCenter. He opens computer accounts and performssundry other duties for Extension School students.For the first week of the semester he works 40hours and then the demands drop dramatically, sohe is paid to study for three hours a day.

He was so busy last fall that he never gotaround to getting his picture taken for theyearbook. Asked how he likes to relax, Quist says,"I don't really like to relax. Do you relax? Forme every holiday is a chance to study."

BACK AT NORTH HOUSE. Quist asks me,"Have you ever seen someone jump chairs? I believeI am the champion chair-jumper at Harvard. Istarted when we were sitting around in the dininghall and we were boredE-6QUISTCrimsonWilliam H. BachmanANTON N. QUIST