by hugh muir

Philip Effah, born 28 years ago in the heart of Ghana, came to the United States in 2005 to earn money to send back to his impoverished extended family in Africa.

On Jan. 12, shortly after 2 a.m., the vehicle he was driving skidded out of control on Interstate 95, near mile-marker 153, and collided with a tractor-trailer. He died the next day in a hospital.

The events that followed were extraordinary.

Effah had lived in a small apartment in Stafford, a few blocks from the Wal-Mart on the Garrisonville Road. He worked the 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift at the store's loading dock, while also holding down a day job in Fairfax. His roommate was Gordon Ankomah, a cousin.

They had grown up together in the Ghanaian village of Techiman in the region of Brong-Ahafo, 175 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. In 2002, Ankomah came to the United States in search of work to earn money to send to the family that stayed behind. Three years later, Effah followed.

He stayed briefly with an uncle and aunt in New York City and acquired a legal work permit. But he found no job and after a year he headed south to join his cousin, who works in Woodbridge. Ankomah said there was work to be found at the nearby Wal-Mart. The loading dock foreman, Daniel Agorgyl, also a Ghanaian, was shorthanded, and, literally, greeted Effah as a "brother" with open arms.

"He came here for survival," Agorgyl said the other day. "Life is hard back home. He sent nearly all his money to his family. He was a hero to them."

Cousin Ankomah recalled that Effah spent very little on himself. "He had no girlfriend and he rarely went to parties."

Wal-Mart assistant manager Linda Benware remembered him as "very quiet, a hard worker, a good kid, no problems."