There were difficulties at first. "I gave thefirst exam to all classes at once. Four hundredexams! I never finished correcting them all. Afterthat I staggered the tests." The laboratory was sohot that Quist says he turned the lights off tokeep the heat bearable. He arranged field trips tolocal factories and taught the text in his ownorder. "I love teaching," he says. "I'd like to doit again someday."
He finished the year of service and startedmedical school, but soon grew frustrated. Hedidn't particularly like his field of study, andstudents protests proved an annoying distraction.
"In America, student protestors get up andchant carry signs, you know, 'Stop the Gulf War.'Back home in Ghana, students burn cars. Theyprotest anything: cutbacks in scholarship money orgovernment repression."
During the protests, the governmentoccasionally shut down the university, sometimesfor months at a stretch, so that it took somestudents six years or more to earn anundergraduate degree.
Quist decided to change his major. Anacceptance letter from Harvard convinced him toleave Ghana as well. He says that to save oninternational postage, the admissions office senthim just one sheet of paper with some pictures ofHarvard and a list of activities, not the usualbulky envelop stuffed with fliers from everyextracurricular group. he got his first view ofHarvard as a member of dorm crew.
"I've always been a foreigner," says Quist. Hismother, a nurse from Jamaica, met his father, adoctor from Ghana, while the two were studying inEngland. Quist's family lived in a Midlands towncalled Lemmington Spa until he was eight, whenthey moved to Accra.
In England, he was an outsider, "the child offoreign-born parents." In Ghana, he was "thenewcomer from Britian." And when he came tocollege in America, he was "the internationalstudent." His brother and sister live in England,his parents live in Ghana, and he has relativesscattered around the globe.
"I feel that I could live anywhere," he says.Although he calls no place home, Quist seems ableto feel at home wherever he is.
He spent one winter vacation in Lake Nebagamon,Wisconsin at the home of his roommate, Thomas J.Norman '92. "When we talk about racial diversityback home, we mean there are Poles, Germans, andScandanavians," Norman says. "Everyone was reallytaken with Anton. They liked him so much that theyasked him to give a presentation to the town aboutAfrica. People crammed into a church basementwhere we taped up a map of Africa. Anton dressedup in his fugu, an African robe, and showedslides, sang the national anthem of Ghana, andtold some folktales."
Over lunch, Quist considers what activity hasmeant most to him at Harvard. He mulls it over,can't decide. "I guess what I've enjoyed most isthe way the community works," he finally says."I've been able to do lots of things, I've lovedthat."
Last fall, some friends suggested to Quist thathe run for class marshall, so he gathered togetherthe materials and handed them in two hours beforethe deadline. "I didn't realize that I would haveto work," he says. Today, after eating, he willmeet with Cara Dunne '92 to work on some skits forthe Senior Talent Show. He will make rain plansfor the cookout, make sure the DJ for theMoonlight cruise knows to arrive early, sellsweatshirts, answer questions about CommencementWeek activities, and return along string ofmessages that have built up on his answeringmachine.
"I'll sleep next week sometime", he says.
Quist has been so involved at Harvard, soactive in the community, that one might imaginefor a moment that he has been fabricated by somezealous publicist at the Harvard News Office orsome booster in Byerly Hall.
He has been active in the North House Committeeand President of Moors Hall. This year he helpedorganize "Wear-Your-Nametag Day" at North House,so that students would learn each other's names.
His first semester at Harvard, he auditionedfor the Mikado and got the title role.Since then he has performed in every Gilbert andSullivan show. He has also worked on the lightingcrew for three shows and directed a Nigerian play.As president of the Harvard African StudentsAssociation, he brought African guests to Harvardand organized an Africa Week, with speakers,music, food, and dances. He told African folktalesat Cultural Rhythms. (He did not learn the talefrom an elder back home during a smoky ritual,though. "I cheated," he says. "I found a book offolktales in narrative form in the stacks ofWidener.")
In boarding school, he used to get up at 5 a.m.every day and run a mile and a half. He kept thatregimen up for a while at Harvard until heswitched to cycling. "At first I cycled to getaround Boston, then to see Boston, and finallyjust because I enjoyed riding," he says. His finalsemester at Harvard he joined the Harvard cyclingteam to see what racing is like.
He has worked 10 to 20 hours a week everysemester for the Extension School. He started withfacilities, installing air conditioners, thenwrote computer software for two summers (he hadpractically never seen a computer before he cameto the States), and finally created his own job,running the Extension Focus Office in the ScienceCenter. He opens computer accounts and performssundry other duties for Extension School students.For the first week of the semester he works 40hours and then the demands drop dramatically, sohe is paid to study for three hours a day.
He was so busy last fall that he never gotaround to getting his picture taken for theyearbook. Asked how he likes to relax, Quist says,"I don't really like to relax. Do you relax? Forme every holiday is a chance to study."
BACK AT NORTH HOUSE. Quist asks me,"Have you ever seen someone jump chairs? I believeI am the champion chair-jumper at Harvard. Istarted when we were sitting around in the dininghall and we were bored