Mansoor Adayfi was only 19 when he arrived at the prison camp at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Growing up in a tiny village in the mountains of Yemen, “I didn’t know much about the world,” he wrote in his Modern Love essay. “Now my world was Guantánamo.”
Mansoor spent his first seven years in an isolation cell. Once he was transferred to a communal block, his world expanded. He and his fellow detainees started organizing informal classes for one another. A former chef taught a cooking class. Another man taught a marriage class, where they learned about love.
In this class, they shared their views on how men should treat women, they discussed what it would feel like to meet the person you love, and they even simulated an engagement and wedding celebration. “I have never been in love, but now I could feel its sweetness,” Mansoor said.
Today, we listen to Mansoor's essay and then hear an update from him. Since Guantánamo, he has experienced one of the best moments of his life — and one of the most painful. He talks to our host, Anna Martin, about what he would now teach others about the art of love.
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