P.

I know that as a teacher, you’re not supposed to have favorites.  But let’s be honest, we’re human, and there are those few students who just seem to bury themselves a little deeper into your heart than others.  P is one of those students.

I remember the first time I saw her.  It was a Wednesday, and she was supposed to have reported for her first day on Monday.  It was a month after the term had already started and we were having issues with new family’s being given spots and then not showing up, so we had been enforcing a pretty strict “no show, no spot” policy.  Since it had been three days and we hadn’t heard anything from P’s mother, we had given her spot to another student.  I remember the feeling of helplessness as this desperate mother explained that they had left for a funeral over the weekend and were unable to inform us since the school was closed.  Thankfully Charity was there, so I took them to the office where P’s mother pleaded for her daughter’s chance to attend Haven of Hope.  She promised that they were committed to school and P would be here every day.  So we gave her a spot.

And P HAS been in school every day.  That first day, she seemed totally overwhelmed as we quickly threw her into a new uniform and shoes and I showed her to her seat.  She just kept staring at me as if thinking, “Is this silly white lady REALLY going to be my teacher?”  She has the biggest, most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and since she barely knows any English, most of her communication is done through those eyes.  She laughs with her eyes, says yes with her eyes, shows utter confusion with her eyes and declares victory with her eyes. 

For those first few weeks of school, she was so quiet it was easy to forget she was even there.  She still is by far my quietest (and most well-behaved) student in class.  But she’s more than just a quiet girl.  She is slowly opening up to me and the other students, and she is absorbing everything.  Sometimes during class when things are chaotic, I just catch her eyes and we smile, as if we know what the other one is thinking.  During break time, I normally sit in the classroom to work on planning or grading, while trying to get a few moments of peace and quiet.  It doesn’t really work, cause I inevitably have a crowd of students surrounding me, wanting to see what Teacher Amy is doing.  And because she’s one of the smallest students, P somehow always manages to wiggle her way right to my left.  She just stands there silently and ever so slightly rests her hand on my leg.  It’s like she wants to be near me.  And she looks at me with those big eyes, and all I want to do is pull her into my lap and hold her close.  Those eyes.  It’s like they’re just begging me to love her.  And I do.  Cause it’s so easy.

Yesterday, the class was taking a test, which P needed me to mostly read aloud.  She waited SO patiently while I checked the other students on reading until I finally had a ten-minute block that I could focus on her.  She nervously giggled at herself when she didn’t know the answers and excitedly looked to me when she DID and it was probably the sweetest ten minutes of my day.  She is learning; and we both knew it.

Which is why today when I read through my morning attendance sheet and discovered that P was absent, I was utterly shocked.  Yes, she had a runny nose yesterday, but nothing that seemed too serious.  I wondered if she had misunderstood my announcement the day before when I said that Friday was a holiday, so Thursday would be our last day of school.  But then the craziness of our last day got the better of me, and I moved on with the 28 students who WERE in class.  Our morning of tests was pretty normal and then I dismissed the students in groups to get their lunch.  We said our prayer and I sat down to eat my nshima and soya chunks when I saw a woman enter the gate of our schoolyard.  The kids all yelled, “Teacher, Visitors!” at the same time, which is a fairly normal occurrence.  I didn’t recognize the woman, so I thought perhaps she was here to visit Teacher Esnart or the woman who makes our lunch.  But she seemed lost.  And then a second, older woman entered the gate carrying a girl as if she were sick.  I saw the black school shoes first, and knew it was one of my students.  My heart dropped and I thought maybe it was another of my absent students who I’m fairly certain is HIV+ and had been very ill yesterday.  But then I saw P’s face.  She was crying.  And although she was wearing her school shoes, she was not wearing her uniform.  The first woman tried to explain to me in Bemba why they were here, but I couldn’t understand.  I quickly went to get Esnart, and she came to help me translate.  I listened and understood words like “father” and “Chingola,” a town about 2 hours away.  And then I heard Teacher Esnart saying words like, “Sorry,” and “God loves you,” as she stooped down to hug P.  She stood up to explain, but I had already figured it out.  P’s father has passed away.

She’s 7.  And her dad is dead.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to sit in that dirt, pull her into my lap, and cry with her.  But more than anything, I wanted there to be no language barrier between us.  I wanted to be able to say something, anything, and have her understand.  But I couldn’t.  All I could do was ask if she wanted to come in and eat her nshima before she and her aunt left to meet her mother in Chingola, the town where her father would be buried.  She took my hand and we went inside.  Of course, all my rowdy students had been watching from the classroom windows during the exchange and were curiously waiting to hear why P had shown up 3 hours late without her uniform.  I wanted to protect her from their questions and comments, so while she was washing her hands, I simply told them that her father had passed.  Thankfully, the students understood (probably because many of them KNOW the pain that comes with the loss of a parent) and the room was quickly silent.  Most of my students are a few years older than P and she hasn’t made too many friends, but either way, Haven of Hope is family and she is one of their own.  I saw the understanding and grace in their faces and it made me love them even more.

Yesteday P was mixing up the English word for “eyes” and “ears” and today she is in Chingola to bury her father.  Yesterday she was one of my 6 students who had perfect attendance, and today she might be forced to move to Chingola so her father’s family can take care of she and her mother.  I know it’s selfish, but I’m desperately praying that she gets to stay in Luanshya.  I’m begging God to give me more time with her, because I see so much potential.  She and her mother’s dedication to Haven of Hope is rare and beautiful, and I would be heartbroken if today was the last time I’ll ever see her.  I’m asking God to let me continue being her teacher so that I can help her learn English and one day tell her how much she means to me.  But more than anything, I’m hoping tonight she knows that even if these next few days are harder than her tiny self can possibly fathom, there is a silly white lady 2 hours away who loves her, and a giant God up in Heaven who loves her even more.