To death and back: a true story of courage and triumph

PART One

In 1989, Iskender Mebrahtu, known to his friends as Alex, arrived in the UK along with his brother Samuel and sister, Rahel. In London, he started his college education and did his A-Levels for two years until 1992. After a year’s break, he attended University College London (University of London) and finished his BEng degree in Electronic Engineering with Computer Science. The following year, he went on to complete his MSc in Telecommunications.

In 1997, Alex took up a job with Energis Communications as a Capacity Planner and worked for the company until 2004. In mid 2000, he studied for a second degree, MSc in Finance, and from 2004 until 2007 worked for different companies in different capacities as a Network Planner, Capacity Planner and Cost Analyst.

In the middle of 2007, Alex’s life took an unexpected turn. Here he tells Million Isaac his remarkable story.

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ASMARA DAYS

“In Eritrea, I had a normal upbringing – you know, school, good neighbourhood life and brilliant family. I went to Comboni School for Boys in Asmara where I made many good friends and gained a firm base in education. When the school was nationalised by the Ethiopian colonial administration in 1982, I went to Santa Anna Secondary School. These two schools played very important roles in helping me turn out the way I am now.

“From early on, I was a very competitive child. I loved football very much. Without wanting to sound immodest, I would say I was a very good footballer. I played in the midfield with a famous left foot. My football nickname was Aba Giray. In 1981, I set the keepy-uppy record by hitting the ball 2,150 times in the presence of my father and a crowd of neighbourhood kids. Afterwards, using charcoal, I wrote the number in big digits on the wall of the building where we used to live. When I went back to Asmara years later, I was so amazed to see that someone had in fact etched the number into the wall for permanence!

“I also enjoyed tennis and basketball and one of my favourite childhood games was Marbles which back home, we fondly called Palina. I was quite good at it too and made quite a bit of money from my collection which I used to sell to friends including my younger brother Sammy. Looking back now, I think that I might have been the first young businessman to have invented three-for-the-price-of-two deals, you know. It brought me a lot of punters.

“As a child, the importance of school was drummed into my mind by both parents – but particularly my mother. Although my parents divorced later, they closely worked as a partnership in instilling the right values in us. I remember my mother and father rewarding us handsomely for our academic achievement. My mother would buy us cakes and such like and every time we did well at school, my father would buy us all kinds of toys.

“My mother is what I would describe as a liberated woman by any Eritrean standard. She didn’t give my brother and me the impression that just because we were boys, we were not supposed to cook or do any other household chores. Sammy and I were always helping out with housework including washing dishes and so on. We were always around my mother at home, watching her cook all kinds of things. My brother Sammy became particularly good at cooking just by watching her do her magic in the kitchen

“Of course, my little sister Rahel was incredible with the way she helped my mother – so much so that sometimes, she used to jokingly complain about her treatment as a slave.

“At school, I loved Maths. I think my competitive nature resulted in me having a lot of drive. I was always motivated to achieve and worked quite hard to attain the goals I set for myself. My love for Maths was such that when I came to the UK, I decided to study Maths, Further Maths and Physics for my A-Levels. I really enjoyed it too.

ARRIVING IN THE UK

“When I arrived in the UK via Italy, I was struck by the life of exile. That was it, we were on our own – we had to do everything for ourselves. Although we had relatives all over Europe, in the UK it was only us three and my cousin Selam Haile, who was just like a sister. But fortunately for us, we happened to be Eritrean. What I mean by that is, despite being strangers in a strange land, the network of support amongst Eritreans was amazing.

“Eritreans freely exchanged information with each other. Almost everyone who’d arrived in the country earlier was an advisor of some kind. If you wanted information about education, housing or anything else, there would always be someone to tell you. This was the main safety net that helped to protect us all from falling into an abyss of hopelessness.

“Where day to day life was concerned, the experience we had back home helped us tremendously. We already knew how to cook and organise the household. We were on top of our shopping and knew how to spend wisely. Sammy and I were in charge of cooking and Rahel and Selam were the hygiene engineers responsible for the washing up and other cleaning detail.

“In the UK, the most important thing was to do well in school – education was crucial.

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On Thursday, 21 June 2007, following a game of football, I collapsed after suffering cardiac arrest. In the world of medicine, a cardiac arrest is the abrupt stoppage of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively. As a result of the cardiac arrest, my heart stopped for five minutes after which, I ended up in a coma for quite sometime […]

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