Good Will Odyssey

I WILL TRY by Legson Kayira. 251 pages. Doubleday. $4.50.

"MR. LEGSON KAYIRA!" As the loudspeaker boomed his name, the African village boy, awkward in his new shoes and suit, stopped short and stared wonderingly into the crowd at New York's International Airport. "CALLING MR. LEGSON KAYIRA!" the disembodied voice repeated. The boy took a deep breath and, as other travelers gaped in astonishment, he bellowed at the top of his voice, "i AM HERE!"

How he got there is the subject of this ingenuous but significant autobiography, the story of an African Horatio Alger who made good his determination to go to college in America. It is the account of one man's odyssey from the Stone Age to the Space Age, and, above all, it is an example of good will between black and white.

Pilgrim's Progress. Legson was born in the British colony of Nyasaland, now independent and known as Malawi. The first white man he ever saw was an elegant official marching behind a column of African tribesmen, commandeered to bear the white man's burden--notably the white man's wife, who was carried through Legson's impoverished village on a litter. He assumed that the strangers were gods.

Later, at a Scottish mission school, he discovered that they were often stupid and insensitive gods who beat black boys. He worked hard at algebra, read Booker T. Washington, pondered the life and works of Abraham Lincoln: "I saw the land of Lincoln as the place one went to get the freedom and independence one knew was due him."

Impossible to get there? The emblem on Legson's school uniform bore the words: I WILL TRY. When Legson was about 16 or 20--nobody really knows when he was born--he decided to try.

One October morning in 1958, carrying an ax, a little flour, a Bible, and a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, he set out barefoot for America. He struck due north through Tanganyika, Uganda, the Sudan. Some days he walked 50 miles, living mostly on bananas and peanuts. After four months his feet were a mass of blisters. "I am mad," he muttered. But his shirt said I WILL TRY. For consolation he read Pilgrim's Progress.

Fifteen months after leaving home, Legson appeared at the U.S. Information Service Library in Kampala, Uganda. There he came across a directory of American junior colleges, opened it at random, put his finger on the first words he saw: "Skagit Valley Junior College, Mt. Vernon, Washington." Then and there, he wrote a letter; two weeks later he had a scholarship; nine months later, thanks to the people of Mount Vernon, he had a plane ticket.

Immortal Face. The U.S. gave Legson quite a reception, but he seems to have accepted everything that came his way with a grave and innocent equanimity. In the capital, he endured the standard tourist treatment, discovered the "sweet relationship" between waffles and syrup, stood in the Lincoln Memorial and "timidly waved at the immortal face." Skagit Valley College received him with a banner and a banquet. The family that "adopted" him had redecorated the spare bedroom. Neighbors stopped in with cakes. Huntley-Brinkley televised him. Some will pin the word "naive" on Legson's wide-eyed good will and on America's cozy, corny reception of him. But there may be more basic human realism in this naivete than cynics either in the U.S. or in Africa would concede.

After studying speech, physics, English and volleyball ("easier than physics") at Skagit, Legson went on to Washington University as a political-science major. In wide demand as a speaker, he was welcomed in Little Rock, segregated in Dallas. After four years in the U.S., he retains his love for the land of Lincoln--and for the land of his birth. After finishing his education, he intends to go home to Malawi and teach school and enter politics. "A salute to you, Malawi," he writes at the end of his book. "We have just begun to try."

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