Soon after he finished school, an offer came for him to join a landowner’s book-keeping team on the coast of Africa.
그가 학교를 마치자마자 아프리카 해안 인근에 위치한 한 지주의 회계팀에서 취업제안이 들어왔다.
It seemed like a blessing, opening a door to a livelihood for him and perhaps some adventure
생업의 문이 열린 축복과도 같은 일이었다. 어쩌면 모험일지도 몰랐다.
The offer came through the imam of his home village.
제안은 마을의 한 성직자를 통해 들어온 것이었다.
The landowner’s antecedents came from the same village in the distant past, and they always sent for a book-keeper from there when they needed one.
지주의 선행
It was to ensure someone loyal and dependent was looking after their affairs. Every year during the fasting month Qassim sent to the imam of his home village a sum of money, which the landowner kept aside from his wages, to pass on to his family. He never returned to Gujarat. That was the story Khalifa’s father told him about his own struggles as a child. He told him because that is what fathers do to their children and because he wanted the boy to want more. He taught him to read and write in the roman alphabet and to understand the basics of arithmetic. Then when Khalifa was a little older, about eleven or so, he sent the boy to a private tutor in the nearby town who taught him mathematics and book-keeping and an elementary English vocabulary. These were ambitions and practices his father had brought with him from India, but which were unfulfilled in his own life.
