When Bobby Farid Hadid, an Algerian merchant marine, was twenty-three, he discovered that a pay phone in a train station near the Algerian shore was broken. He could call anywhere in the world free. He dialled the country code for the United States, followed by ten random numbers. Sheilla Jean-Baptiste, a young Haitian-American in New York, picked up the phone. “Hello, America?” Hadid said.
They both spoke French. They discussed their ages, their jobs, and their races. Hadid described himself as “light.” Jean-Baptiste said she was black, and asked if that was O.K. She was eager to “make a friend from far away,” she said. Hadid began sending her postcards and calling her from ports around the world.
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