The Middle of Everywhere (17 page)

Amazingly, Abdul asked for my help and I went to sit by him. With me almost doing his work, we completed the spelling test. He never looked at me, but he smiled when I helped him, and afterward, he showed his paper to the other students.

Deena asked me to feel her forehead. She was hot and said her head hurt. Grace wrote out a slip and sent her to the nurse. She told me that Deena had been stressed lately. Twice this last week Deena had stayed home to translate for her mother's medical appointments.

Khoa handed me a drawing that said, "I like you. Do you like cats?" The words were enclosed in a heart surrounded by small drawings of cats and of me. He'd given me big eyes, a big smile, and very curly hair. I smiled to think that might be how he saw me.

Today's work was a unit on grooming. Fatima wore a long silky pink dress covered with red roses. She had blue nail polish on her fingers and toes. Trinh almost never took off her jacket. Today Ly wore a white corduroy dress with a faux leopard-skin collar and Mary Jane shoes with white lacy socks. Khoa and Pavel looked like they should exchange clothes. Pavel's T-shirt didn't cover his round belly while Khoa wore a Big Red T-shirt that looked like a blanket on him. Only Walat was always carefully groomed in new Kmart clothes.

Ignazio had protruding teeth and Fatima's teeth were very crooked. I wondered if their parents would be able to afford orthodontists later. Many of the kids had bad breath and I wondered if they came from countries without toothbrushes.

Grace explained that Americans brush their teeth two times a day and that we take showers daily. The kids were amazed by this feet. Ignazio said, "In Mexico we took a bath on Saturdays." Ly said, "You will get sick if you take baths when it is cold." Grace said, "Not really. But in the winter you must dry off very well and put on warm clothes right after your bath." Khoa asked, "Do you put on your underwear?" Everyone laughed.

The spelling words—"toothbrush," "toothpaste," "soap," "comb"—were to be used in sentences. Khoa called toothbrushes "toothbutts," and everyone laughed. Grace said, "No more nasty stuff now, Khoa." Deena returned from the nurse and I asked about her family. She whispered, "My mother wants to go back to Bosnia."

Grace showed the class health books. One about hair was entitled
Mama, Do You Love Me?
Khoa joked about flakes in hair and about Ignazio's cowlick. Fatima explained that in her country women wore veils when they went out. She said that only little girls could wear shorts. Older girls must wear dresses.

Ignazio explained that it was hard to stay clean in Mexico. Some mornings there was water and sometimes there wasn't. He said there were rats, not like Nibbles who loved to play, but rats that bit and stole the family's corn. Mai said that her mother had gotten sick in Vietnam because of dirty water. Fatima said that it was the same in Iraq, not enough water and big mean rats. For some reason this got Walat thinking of Iraq. He told the class that in Iraq his dad was rich, but his enemies had threatened to hurt them. They had to move. Abdul had been drawing dolphins. But as he listened to Walat, he switched to sharks.

Grace said the kids could draw something from their old countries. Trinh drew a river with black water. Mai drew a picture of her hut in Vietnam. In front was her mother, a stick figure, holding the hand of Mai, also a stick figure, but with a big smile.

Many refugees yearn for connection with missing or dead parents. Grace encouraged them to bring pictures of their family to school and to look at or kiss the picture whenever they felt like it. She recommended they bring an object from the missing parent. Kids are concrete thinkers and can more easily imagine a parent if they are touching something that stands for the parent.

Ly drew a plane that looked like a silver bird. She told me the villagers thought that she rode on this silver bird to her home in the clouds. She giggled, "We thought America would be in the sky."

Khoa drew a rice field with an old man in it and said, "That is my dead grandpa." Walat drew his fancy home that was burned down by his father's enemies. Pavel drew a picture of his family at a dinner table with empty plates and he said, "In Russia people had no money to buy soup." Deena drew a street filled with dead bodies.

I marveled at these kids' resilience. Many had only been here a few months. They had been starved, shot at, and terrorized, and yet here they were drawing and talking. Some seemed more mangled emotionally than others. Walat and Ly were in good shape; Ignazio and Pavel were basically comfortable with their lives. However, Khoa's constant hyperactive chatter suggested a bad case of nerves, and Trinh and Abdul seemed almost mute from the stress of living in war zones. It is not surprising that traumatized kids who don't speak much English have trouble learning. What is surprising is given their circumstances how much and how quickly most kids learn.

Grace and I talked about rituals—lighting a candle in memory of relatives who died in a war or making a toast to what one most appreciates—small acts that can have great power. I suggested a flower day in the spring when everyone could bring flowers for the people they loved who were no longer with them.

November 4, 1999

The day was cool and cloudy, the sycamore's brown leaves blew in the wind. A few swirled to the ground. When I arrived at the classroom, Walat was drawing a map of train tracks with switching stations and overpasses. Deena looked at a book on horses as she caressed Nibbles. When she smiled at me, I noticed her two front teeth were missing. Mai read a book about a girl who ran away from home. Khoa was reading
Curious George.
Grace whispered that Khoa's oldest brother had just been arrested on drug charges. Pavel proudly showed me his Pokémon toys. His parents might walk to work and have holes in their shoes, but Pavel had the's tuff he wanted from television. Ignazio looked at a book on giant cobras. He had a bandage over his eye. Grace thought it was pinkeye and gave him a slip to see the nurse.

The class worked on spelling. Today Grace taught them words for winter clothes—"mittens," "boots," "caps," and "coats." Many of the kids had never lived in a cold place before and were unprepared for winter. Mai asked, "Please, Miss Grace, what is snow?"

Grace wrote the words "wind chill," "sleet," "ice," and "blizzard" on the board. Every time Ly got a word right she yelled out yes. Two months ago, Ly had been quieter, but now she was one of the most enthusiastic students.

Abdul would not do his spelling today. When I offered to help him, he turned away from me. "Abdul," I said, "I would like to be your friend." He smiled, but not at me. Progress with Abdul was like that of the frog climbing up a wall, two inches up and then one back down.

Grace led the class in a song about good grooming. To the tune of "London Bridge" the class belted out, "Here we go to wash our hands, wash our hands." To the "Hokey Pokey" song, they sang the words, "Germs are really mean. But they can't be seen. They will make you sick. Then you're gonna feel ick. Use some soap and water, Scrub your hands to get them clean, Clean's what it's all about." Khoa howled, yipped, and barked creatively instead of singing. Grace ignored him. Ignazio's stomach growled and Abdul and Pavel laughed.

Mai had her shirt on backward. I could see some scratch marks on her arm. I asked about her Big Sister, Amy. She said, "Amy has tests at her school." I said, "Don't worry, Mai, she will come back."

Ly signaled me to sit by her and watch her draw. I thought how hard it was to give these kids all the attention they needed. Indeed, as I watched today, the kids seemed wilder and all wound up. Deena and Fatima were fighting over colored markers. Trinh was zipping and unzipping her jacket. Only Walat seemed on task.

When Grace read
The Crocodile's Toothache
by Shel Silver-stein, Ignazio forgot his rumbling stomach and clapped when the crocodile swallowed the dentist. Deena and Ly laughed out loud. Even smart-mouthed Khoa and dreamy Abdul listened. For a few good moments we were all together.

Then it was time to work on silent
e
vs. long
e.
Mai sighed and jabbed her pencil into her desk. Ignazio scratched his belly. Abdul didn't even pick up his pencil. Pavel crossed out a sentence and began another, his nose almost touching his pencil as he strained to write. I made a note to suggest to Grace that he get his eyes checked.

As he scribbled with his stubby pencil, Khoa hummed the "Star-Spangled Banner." I took him a new pencil and realized that, like Grace, I was hooked on this kid. He was mouthy and coarse, but he held our hands on the way to assembly.

I was also felling for Ly with her bright smile and happy talk. I respected Deena's work with her family although she was way too young to be so burdened. Mai's palpable loneliness touched the place in my heart that remembered loneliness. They were all getting to me. I wanted to capture Abdul's attention. I wanted to elicit a look of interest from Trinh, something I vowed I would accomplish before the year was out.

November 17, 1999

When I got to class, Fatima reported that Nibbles had died the day before. Two days ago the class had noticed he had a little blood on his nose and that he wasn't moving around too much. Then yesterday when they came to school he was dead.

Deena had immediately developed a headache and had to go to the nurse for a Tylenol. Mai had pulled her own hair. Ignazio and Abdul had punched each other. Fortunately Grace had channeled their grief into a service for Nibbles. She'd allowed Pavel to run home for a special rock to bury with Nibbles and she'd put Khoa in charge of the funeral. The kids had added a candy cane and a blue crystal to his shoe-box coffin. Ignazio had said a prayer. They all had helped dig the grave in the flower garden of the school. Ly and Deena had cried. Grace had led them in a good-bye song.

The funeral had been well handled, but I could see the grief today. We had a story circle and each student shared one happy memory of Nibbles. Deena remembered one day when Nibbles slept on her lap. Ignazio remembered how much Nibbles liked bananas. Khoa made spirited comments about Nibbles's poop. Ly remembered a day she had drawn Nibbles. Walat recalled the fan Nibbles had with his exercise wheel. Pavel said Nibbles tickled him when he crawled all over his back. Mai and Trinh refused to tell a Nibbles story, but they liked the other kids' stories. Telling stories never fails to produce good in the universe.

Grace whispered that there had been other troubles this week. Khoa was upset that his brother was in jail. Deena had missed several days of school translating for her family with the INS. On the bright side, Pavel would be getting new glasses. When the class was ready to work, Grace suggested we do family drawings.

I circled the room as the students worked on their drawings. Pavel drew his parents in their car with his brother, himself, and his sister in the backseat. He told me, "They are on their way to work and we are going to day care."

Ly drew herself surrounded by family—her mother and father were sewing and her siblings were studying. Ignazio drew himself in the middle of his extended family, which included cousins and grandparents. Fatima drew her parents and siblings giving her presents. Deena drew her mother in bed and the others watching television. Walat drew his house in Iraq with a star on top. He said, "Our house in Iraq was nicer than the one we have here."

Abdul smiled his Mona Lisa smile and drew fish with teeth and wheels where they should have had fins. Khoa's drawing was the biggest and most colorful. He had drawn his siblings around his parents with a big red heart in the center of the picture and everyone holding hands. He pointed to the tallest brother and said, "My dad hired a lawyer. We'll get his butt out of jail."

Mai drew a picture of her father, stepmother, and baby brother. I asked her why she was not in the picture, and she said, "I am in Vietnam." I asked if she had a picture of her mother and she nodded yes. I said, "Carry that picture with you and whenever you look at it, your mother will be smiling at you." She looked at me carefully and then nodded again.

Grace explained the Thanksgiving story and suggested a game with Thanksgiving words. Normally games animate this class, but today even Ly and Khoa were low-key. When Grace called on Walat he was under the table looking for his eraser. Deena had a headache and lay her head on her desk.

Abdul and Khoa picked at each other, trying to start a fight. I remembered something Grace had told me earlier about Abdul. She had described him as not following rules. But she said, "He recently arrived from a war zone and there were no rules. No good rules anyway." She told me about a Bosnian boy whose dad had taught him, "Always attack first," which may have been a good rule in Bosnia, but it didn't work well at Sycamore School.

Grace took out a picture book and told them the story of the
Mayflower.
The pictures were from a book entitled
A Better Life.
The best students paid attention, but unfortunately, the kids who most needed to pay attention didn't. Khoa was listening a little because when Grace talked about the Pilgrims' hard times he shouted out, "Boohoohoo." Grace asked what was the name of their boat and Deena answered, "The
Titanic.
"

Fatima was impressed with the fact that there were no bathrooms on the
Mayflower,
a fact that generated a host of raucous remarks from Khoa. Ignazio was most impressed that the Pilgrims had only cold food and not much of that.

Grace showed them pictures of the
Mayflower
landing and of the Indians helping them plant corn by burying little fish by each plant. When Grace showed a picture of Massasoit, the Indian leader at the first Thanksgiving, Ly said, "He looks Vietnamese."

Khoa shouted with great enthusiasm, "Let's all meet at school for Thanksgiving dinner."

Pavel said, "I will go shoot rabbits for our food."

Deena said, "Please don't kill a rabbit."

Ly announced that last night someone had thrown a rock in the window of their home. Grace asked if her parents called the police and she nodded. The children discussed robbers and getting hint. Deena, Mai, and Pavel seemed especially anxious during this discussion. Grace tried to make good things happen but the tone remained somber. We kept returning to themes of loss. Nibbles's death had cast a pall over the class. When I left, even the sycamore was in shadow.