Elaine Loft, Staff Writer
Each summer, Derryfield students participate in a reading project, with books assigned according to grade levels. In the fall, students meet in small groups to discuss and “digest” these community reads, and then revisit them throughout the school year with author visits, speakers and programs, and with classroom activities. The theme of the school’s summer 2025 reading program was “Reaching Across Divides.”
This year, the theme of the summer reading program was “Reaching Across Divides.” The middle school students read I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives, by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda (with Liz Welch). It is a true story about how two pen pals—one a girl from the U.S., the other a boy from Zimbabwe—who seemingly have little in common, become best friends. Some of the questions the Derryfield middle school students were asked to consider were: What misunderstandings or barriers do Cailin and Martin encounter as they get to know each other? Martin and Caitlin’s lives were so different; what do you think enabled them to connect and form such a deep bond?
On October 6, Caitlin Alifirenka spoke to the entire school in a Community Meeting. Alifirenka’s presentation was second in the annual series of Community Enrichment Programming at Derryfield, which is supported by the Isakovitch-Critz Family. Head of School Andy Chappell opened the meeting by reminding the audience that “we need to look beyond our own lives.”
The audience sat in rapt attention as Alifirenka gave a lively, firsthand, account of her relationship with Martin Ganda–from their first letters, to their current lives. Alifirenka worked the stage, telling of how her connection with “my best friend, who lived 10,000 miles away” grew and changed over the years.
“I was a typical American middle school student–I cared more about my friends and social life than the outside world. I never really thought outside my bubble of my hometown of Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Although I had traveled a lot with my family, I really knew nothing about the world. I had no idea that by choosing to go outside my comfort zone, by choosing to be pen pals with someone in Zimbabwe, my life would be changed forever.”
At first Alifirenka and Ganda shared typical teenage stories, connecting most closely over music, like The Spice Girls. As their correspondence continued, Alifirenka came to learn more specific details about Ganda’s life, including the fact that his family shared a small, one-room dwelling with another family, food was sparse, water had to be fetched from far away, and unlike Alifirenka, Ganda’s family had very few possessions. When Ganda’s father lost his job at a paper company, and Martin and his siblings had to drop out of school, Alifrenka enlisted her own family to help the Ganda family survive.
Eventually Martin Ganda, “the smartest boy, ever, in his village,” came to the United States to attend Villanova on a full scholarship, earning dual degrees in mathematics and economics. He later earned an MBA at Duke University. Caitlin Alifirenka, an emergency room RN, now married with a family of her own, and Martin Ganda, an accomplished entrepreneur, consider one another family.
Alifirenka offered a final message to the Derryfield audience,
“One act of kindness changed the course of Martin’s life. Kindness starts within your own community, and kindness spreads.”
