Reflection: June 11

Yesterday, I started scratching the back of my head. I had this little feeling- a sharp, soft pinprick, more like it- somewhere on my head. A mosquito bite? No. A tick? Can’t be. Then, slowly throughout the day, the feeling spread: down the back of my neck, into my arms and fingers, through my chest and to my stomach, where it circled like a hawk overhead before spiraling into a heavy mass. This daunting weight sat in my stomach all day as I watched the child refugees at St. Andrew’s and as I planned my attack on how to better serve them.

We began our morning by observing various classes at St. Andrew’s and luckily I was put into an English class. The children were learning about parts of speech- nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and all the wonderful things that I love to study in linguistics-, so needless to say I in exactly the right place. Along with Hannah and Lindsey, I had the opportunity to see these eager young kids figure their eager young ways through the English language. I’ve never seen so many smiling faces in a single classroom. Every time the teacher asked a question, at least half the class shot an index finger into the air- their equivalent of raising your hand- and shouted out, “Miss! Miss!” in hopes of answering it.

Chances are that these kids have no chance. They are refugees in a country that either doesn’t want them or doesn’t want to deal with them, or both. Maybe I’m not giving Egypt a fair shake, and the fact of the matter might actually be that Egypt is unequipped to deal with them, but these kids nonetheless have the deck stacked against them. Chances are these kids will have a brutal, challenging existence on this planet. Watching their eyes moon over prepositions was like seeing a beautiful flower that doesn’t recognize the winter two steps away from setting in. It was simultaneously soaring joy and crashing sadness. There was a kind of glorious innocence about it all that I wish I could capture in words or pictures or film. But I can’t. It was the most natural, most basic human reaction, the product of thousands of years of human experience programmed into my DNA. It transcended paternal instinct; it was a moment when you realize what makes you human.

It is our job to fight against all the forces soon to embitter these children’s lives- the government, xenophobia, fear, self-doubt- and to shield them from the coming storm. In all likelihood, our eight weeks probably won’t change things. We may teach 80 kids, but there thousands of others out there. But that’s not the point now, is it? The point is to try to affect them, no, to incite them to change their own lives. We are not teaching them English or Arabic, but rather we are teaching them the tools necessary to empower themselves. If even just one student goes on to lead a better life than they would have without us, then we’ve succeeded. Or, at least, that’s the goal.

Time to go do it.