Return to Tanzania

Return to Tanzania

July 5 – July 16, 2014

I had always imagined what this day would be like, returning to Tanzania.  Now after nearly three years, it was going to happen.  I had tried to sleep on the long flight, but excitement and anticipation kept me awake.  What would they look like?  Would they recognize me?  Was I still an important part of their lives?  So many memories were racing through my mind.  I remembered the pain of leaving long ago, not knowing if I would ever see them again, not knowing what their lives would be like. My heart felt as if it were skipping beats as the plane finally landed, and Pat and I made our way through all the necessary queues to claim our bags.  Then, as I was waiting to grab my bag from the carousel, I looked out the open door at the people gathered to welcome their loved ones, and I saw them.  Rather, I saw their light, the light of happiness which seemed to surround them as they waved and whooped and called to me.  Somehow, in an instant, I had retrieved my luggage and had gone out the door and was in their arms again, showered with flowers, cards, and love.  Victoria, Aggie, her new baby Anticlea Ruth, Neema, Maria, Adolph, Brighton, Damian, Fidesta, and Yuda had all come to welcome me home.

                                   

 My entourage escorted us to our hotel, some riding in our taxi and the others coming by bus or budaji. Someone ran out for sodas and we sat in the lobby to catch up on old times, but after two days of traveling and very little sleep, my head began to spin.  My family left me then, assuring me that they would see me soon, and I reluctantly went upstairs.  But oh, how good it felt to finally take a shower and then stretch out flat on a bed!

I fell asleep quickly, but it is in the stillness of the night that awareness finds me, my thoughts so vivid and clear, maybe fueled by mefloquine (an antimalarial drug), but real nonetheless. Why had I traveled thousands of miles to this place?  Surely not to see the environment of Dar es Salaam, a dirty, smelly, over-crowded city. What compelled these people to take time from work or school and spend their precious money to come and greet me?  Who are we to one another?  The horn of the muezzin interrupts my musings.  This early morning call to prayer stirs something deep inside me, seemingly refocusing my eyes, sharpening my ears, and attuning me to what I had seen at the airport.  The light I had seen surrounding them had been the love of God.  We are drawn to one another, like moths to the light, because there is no way we can resist the power of this force.  God brought us all together, each one of us broken and beaten down by life, and He healed us with His agape love.

(Another small miracle that I cannot explain is that my proficiency in Swahili seems to have improved, even though I have not heard it or spoken it in nearly three years.  I had no problem understanding or being understood.  I even served as translator several times, although sometimes I found myself speaking Swahili to Pat and English to Victoria).  

Readjustment

Readjustment

March 25, 2012

Many of you have been asking for an update, but now that the story is my story, it is not so easy to write.  However, it is time to finally break my self-imposed silence, if for no other reason than the fact that writing gives me peace.  You may have wondered about my silence; I wondered why my words would not flow. 

During my close-of-service conference last August, the facilitator led a session on the difficulties of readjustment.  At my medical exit exam, the doctor presented me with vouchers for counseling services.  I remember scoffing at these implications that readjustment would be a challenge.  After all, I was returning to America, the land of opportunity and abundance, including luxuries like electricity, water, internet, cars, movies, shopping malls, even trash pick-up.  How tough could readjustment be? 

What I failed to consider was that the readjustment I imagined was based on my old life, and now that life was gone.  Maybe once you have followed “the road less traveled by,” it is impossible to ever really return to a more familiar path.

In my eagerness to return to America, I did not think about the implications of having no home and no job. In Africa I lived among the poor, but I was never really one of them.  Now things are so different.  I have seen another side of America.  Milling about community job fairs, I have seen the fear in peoples’ eyes.  Standing in line for a resume review, the middle-aged woman ahead of me poured out her story along with her tears.  Without a job soon, she would lose everything.  I could feel her despair but I had no words to comfort her.  I, too, was traveling through a foreign land.

I suppose I was better off than most.  I had a place to stay and food to eat, although it is quite humiliating asking my elderly mother for gas money.  But I wonder about those who do not have family or friends to help them.  What do they do?  I know being unemployed deprives you of energy and strength, and the fear can be debilitating.  How easy it would be to give up hope.

 Although my spirits were as gloomy as the gray New England days, I pushed myself to search for jobs.  I attended job fairs.  I searched on-line.  I carefully crafted cover letters and sent out resumes.  I assume that most were deposited into the circular file in cyberspace after being electronically scanned for some cryptic keywords that were not there.   I had thought my faith was strong, but there were moments when I called out, “Where are you God?  Why have you abandoned me?”  Then one day, his response popped into my head, “I am here.  Trust me!” and my anxiety about my situation diminished considerably.

I was sure that eventually I would find a job, but I wanted more than just a job to earn money.  I wanted a job which would allow me to continue, in my small way, to change the world.  I did not want easy.  I did not want safe.  I wanted satisfaction for my soul.  Part of me wants to return to Africa, but just as the professor said in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “you cannot go back the same way twice.” I’ll find another way some day, but for now my work is here.

Finally, after six months of unemployment, the job search has come to an end.  I attended a job fair in Washington, DC and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had options.  I contemplated the idea of working at the all girls National Cathedral School.  Imagine attending worship services in that gorgeous cathedral during the school day!   But when I compared it to the opportunity of working at a public charter school in downtown DC, a school described as tough but not violent, I knew that these were not the girls that God intended me to serve.  When the recruiter talked about the charter school, it reminded me a bit of a Tanzanian school.  I felt I could be happy there, but despite its tug on my heart, I turned down that opportunity as well.  I chose instead a teaching position at a new, public, all girls leadership academy in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It offers the challenges and the opportunities to make a difference that I crave, and I already know the environment. 

Although the job search is officially over, I will not actually begin earning a paycheck until the end of August.  I will be moving to Raleigh in May so that I can attend planning and team building meetings for the new school.  Hopefully I will stay with my son for most of the summer, but I may get the chance to become a nomad, bunking down wherever I can.  I look forward to the day when I will once again have a place to call my own, (or better yet, to share with my mom). 

So my adventures are not over yet.  In fact, they are just beginning again, in a new place with new people. I cannot wait! 

Kwa Heri Tanzania! Karibu Tena Marekani!

Kwa Heri Tanzania, Karibu Tena Marekani!

September 23, 2011

            It will be easy to walk away from this place and all of the challenges that accompany life here.  I will not miss the dust or the mud or the lack of electricity and running water.  I want to enjoy a hot shower again, and not have to make do with scoops of water poured over my head while sitting on a cold bathroom floor.   I want to have internet every day and I want to know what is going on in the world.  I am tired of pushing my way onto uncomfortable, overcrowded buses hoping they will make it to where I want to go.  Yes, I love America, and I want to go home.  However, I know that leaving Tanzania will not be easy.  Although I am eager to experience life in a developed country once more, I cannot begin to describe how I feel about leaving behind those whom I have come to love: especially those who love me for who I am and not just for what I can offer them.

            My first parting was with Yuda, and it was the most difficult of all.  I will always remember the day I first met him; he was a scruffy, lonely little boy surprised to see a “mzungu” at his home.  Now he smiles a lot, he seems more confident, and he has hope for his future.  I have found him a place to stay for school holidays with an older couple that I met at church.  The Leopolds are kind and compassionate.  They will be good to Yuda; however, why did my heart hurt so much as he sobbed in my arms when I said good-bye?  Is it possible that I had truly become his mother?  I must admit that I cried too, because somehow I know that this African child has become my son.

            I have said good-bye to many students over the years, and I may have felt a bit of regret at the loss of the relationships for a short time.  However, I did not feel too bad, because I knew that almost all of them would be moving on to something better.  That is not the case with my students in Tanzania.  When I walked into the form 6 classroom for the last time, the students all stood to greet me.  I was overwhelmed with emotion as I noticed their tears.  How could I leave them?  Would they be able to maintain their confidence or would they lose their hope after I was gone?  I could sense their fear.  Oh God, please be with them and give them peace!  I have only taught form 5 for one term, but I have grown quite fond of them too.  Who will encourage them now?  Who will teach them how to teach themselves?  Who will see that every student has occasional access to a book?  The students wanted to thank me for all I had done for them, but they were embarrassed because all they could give me was a song.  It was a beautiful song, a song about angels.  To me it was worth more than anything money could buy.

 

            When I am stressed, I tend to turn inward for strength.  I prefer to be alone to work through my problems; however, Fidesta and Aggie wanted to escort me all the way to the airport in Dar.  I told them that it would be painful, but they insisted on coming.  Victoria and Maria traveled from Morogoro.  Aggie’s brother and Mr. Leopold’s daughter also came.  I said farewell to Fidesta’s uncle and brother and many others by phone.  Aggie and Fidesta sang me our favorite song one last time (Nimepata Yesu moyoni wangu: I have got Jesus in my heart).  Maria traced the bones in my hand with her finger and seemed to be trying to memorize its color.  Victoria gave me a long letter thanking me for all I had done and reaffirming her belief that all that had transpired over the last two years had, indeed, been done by the grace of God.  Aggie begged me not to forget them.  I assured her that that would not be possible.  Hearts broke; tears flowed, we said good-bye.  I entered the airport alone.

            Kwa heri Tanzania! (Farewell Tanzania).  Kwa herini my friends!  Thank you all for your support and pray without ceasing; that is, live each day of your life as if it were a prayer to God.    

    

Wanting Water

Wanting Water

September 7, 2011

            I have had much to think about lately, but many of my thoughts have been about water.  In America, I think we take the availability of fresh, clean drinking water for granted.  If you are thirsty, you are able to turn on the tap and fill a glass and drink.  However, in many parts of the world, that is not the case.  As Elizabeth and I traveled across the flat, dry Arusha highlands, I began to realize just what it means to have no water.  Most of the Arusha plains seemed to be just dust fields dotted with dry scrub brush and fragmented by barren river beds, which will rapidly carry away any rain that happens to fall, because it has nowhere else to go. 

Finding water during the dry season is the most important daily chore and everything else revolves around that task.  Going to school is not an option for many children during this time, because they must herd the cattle, donkeys and goats to the water holes.  When they find one, they join the others filling their buckets and jugs at one end, while the animals wade in the water and drink at the other.  The water hole is no more than a large mud puddle, yet for most people in this region, it is water for drinking, for bathing, for cooking, and for washing clothes.  That muddy, green, bacterial infested, parasite-laden water is life.

            Fidesta recently returned home for term break.  Her school happens to be far out on the Arusha plain.  With more than 1000 students and no water, the administrators had no choice but to close school early.  She told us how difficult it was to obtain water.  Water holes in this region are carefully guarded by the Masai people. Students are allowed to fetch water only once a week: boys on Saturday and girls on Sunday.  The water holes are several kilometers from school and students must never go without a guardian.  If the Masai are there with their animals, students must wait until the animals have finished drinking before filling their buckets.  Sometimes the Masai decide that there is not enough water to share and they chase the students away.  Fidesta buys bottled water at the school shop for drinking because she is afraid of disease, but she uses the dirty water in her bucket for bathing and washing clothes.  She describes her daily micro bath as “passport picture size” bathing.  The school toilets are flush toilets which are no longer flushed.  She said that it is so unpleasant to use them that many students have begun going outside in the bush.  At night when it is not safe to go out, many just go inside on the floor.  

            As thoughts of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid ran through my head, I asked Fidesta if she wanted to shift schools again, but she said it was too late, and despite the problems there, she said that Longido does well with academics.  They have teachers, and the teachers actually enter the classroom and teach.  She likes her school and she wants to stay.  I searched through my first aid kit and found some water purification tablets.  I gave her every pack of wet wipes and hand sanitizer that I had left.  Then I prayed that the rains would come again soon and that God would keep her safe.

            Conditions like this may seem appalling and unusual, but lack of clean water is a problem faced by many people throughout the developing world.  The next time you flush a toilet, water your lawn or get up in the night to get a drink, thank God for this blessing and say a prayer for the men and women and children who suffer because they lack clean water to drink.   

        

Safari Njema

  Safari Njema

 (A Good Journey)

September 3, 2011

     My daughter recently came to visit me here in Tanzania, and since it may be a once in a lifetime trip for her and also because I wanted to see some of the best of Tanzania before I leave, I decided to put aside my kanga and head wrap, pull on my one pair of ill-fitting jeans and become a tourist.  We took the Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar ferry and spent a delightful day and night in Stone Town.  The thing that was delightful was that it was not crowded and there were not many street vendors to harass us.  This was probably because we arrived on Friday (Muslim holy day) during the holy month of Ramadan. The hotel was luxurious (at least I thought so, but then anything with a hot water shower and electricity would seem luxurious to me).  We found a quaint café nearby with a nice view of the Indian Ocean and we spent the late afternoon talking and eating ice cream.  
 

Our Zanzibar trip was wonderful, but the trip back to Dar was not so fun.  The sea was rough and even though I took motion sickness medicine, I had to join many of my fellow passengers outside at the railing, including the aides to the former president of Tanzania.  The former president stayed inside to regurgitate his lunch in a bag. (I wondered why he would choose to travel by public ferry and not by private plane).

        
Early the next morning Elizabeth and I boarded the Dar Express, a luxury bus, to travel back to Mkuu. A luxury bus means that everyone must be seated.  Most likely you will have your own seat, although sometimes a small child may sit on your lap.  Often the seats are overbooked, and if you are unlucky, you may have to sit on a bucket or a soda crate in the aisle even though you are still required to pay full price for your ticket. If a good Samaritan gives you something to pad your seat, make sure to say “thanks” because the plastic ridges on the bucket get very uncomfortable during the ten hour ride.  

    
    I was really excited to have Elizabeth visit my site.  I wanted her to meet all of the people that I have written about.  I wanted her to see all of the things that I have seen.  I wanted her to experience everything that I have experienced here in Mkuu.  However, after four days of greeting strangers, struggling to make sense of an unfamiliar culture, listening to me speak an odd mix of English and Swahili, even to her, and not understanding a word anyone said, she was thoroughly overwhelmed. I realized then that I was exposing her to too much too soon.  I have lived here for two years.  What seems ordinary to me now may have at one time seemed extraordinary.  I remembered all of the times that I longed to talk to someone, anyone, who could speak fluent English.  Now, although I might speak very bad Swahili, I can carry on a fairly long conversation. I remembered wanting to get out of the limelight but having nowhere to hide. Now I do not seem to be such a novelty in my community, but on days when I do, I know where to go.  There was a time in my life when I would have been disgusted by some of the foods that I eat here, and I would have been annoyed by some of the habits of my Tanzanian friends.  Now many things do not seem so bizarre, although I still refuse to eat goat intestines and cow stomachs.  It seems ironic that when I have finally adapted to this culture, I am preparing to leave it behind. 

Elizabeth may not have felt so nostalgic, because she seemed quite happy to get out of town.  After the cultural overload in Mkuu, we donned our tourist clothes again and went on safari to Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara National Parks. Last year I went in a school bus; this year I traveled in an air conditioned land cruiser.  There was also a big difference in price, but still the trip was wonderful.  It was awesome to see so many African animals up close.  It was like being in the “Lion King.”  In fact, I might actually have been humming the theme song along the way.  I was nice to share that adventure together.

            After a brief stay at a beach resort in Dar, Elizabeth went home to America and I went home to Mkuu.  Her life will continue as she left it, my old life in America is gone.  When I return in a few weeks, I will begin anew.  Some days I spend too much time thinking about what it will be like, about what I will do, about how I will survive, and I begin to feel tense and uneasy.  Then I take a deep breath and remind myself to just follow the road.  Wherever it leads, the journey will be good.  Safari njema and follow the road!  A traveler always does.

Miscellaneous Thoughts and Observations

 Miscellaneous Thoughts and Observations

August 3, 2011

            I am becoming increasingly aware that my days here are numbered, in only seven weeks, or in 51 days, September 23^rd to be exact, two years to the day when I first arrived in Tanzania, I will be going home.  Maybe I am not sleeping well because I have too many things on my mind; maybe I am just trying to imprint every sound, every smell, and every image on my brain so that I will never forget my life here in Mkuu.  I know it is wasted effort however, because I will never forget.  I came here wholly American, but a ”whole” American is not returning home.  My eyes have changed; my kaleidoscope wheel has turned.  A part of me has become African.  For that small part of me, Tanzania is my home.

            I noticed a large green praying mantis on the ceiling in my bedroom the other night.  In the morning it was gone.  I thought maybe one of my lizards ate it, but after making my bed, I looked down and saw it clinging to my pajama pants. As I walked out in the kitchen to let it out the door, Aggie saw it there and cried out, “Madam, did that bug fight your leg? You should kill it.  It is not good.”  I tried to reassure her, “No, it is a praying mantis.  It eats bad bugs.  In America we have laws to protect these bugs.  I am going to let it go.” “But Madam, did you know that if that bug bites your belly button, your belly button will become very big, and there is no medicine to heal it.”  With a chuckle, I freed the big green belly button biter.

            We have been having a bit of a building boom here lately.  The school is adding an addition to the A-level girls’ hostel so that the girls who are currently sleeping in the temporary dormitory (an unused classroom) will have a proper place to sleep.  (We expanded our A-level program before we had enough living space available).  The second building project is a new parish office at the church.  Padre wants the exterior to match the original buildings on the mission campus; he wants it to be stone.  Therefore, one Sunday he told us all to bring a stone to church the next week.  I saw a reasonably sized stone along the path near my house and pointed it out to Aggie, but she said it was not big enough.  She showed me a large boulder in our corn field, and she said, “That stone is nice.  If you carry that stone to church Madam, everyone in the community will know you. They will never forget you.  That will become the Mzungu stone.”  Unfortunately, I think I am going to have to disappoint everyone and turn down this opportunity for fame.  I am able to carry a less than full bucket of water or even a large bag of clothes on my head for a quite a distance, but a boulder!  I do not think I can do it.  Oh well, maybe it is a chance for some other bibi (grandmother) to become famous.  Maybe the one who sits in front of me in church; she is about four and a half feet tall and has marijuana leaves on her head scarf.  She could probably carry it, no problem.  That is the thing about Chaga women, they may be small, but they are strong!

            Building represents progress, but it also has its down side.  Timbers and boards are required for framing and building.  That means it becomes necessary to sacrifice trees.  So just like in Cary in the 80’s, they clear-cut the land.  They chopped down almost all the tall hardwoods around my house, around the existing hostel, and in the fields near the church.  They did spare the tree to which my clothes line is tied.  Maybe they were worried that I would stop washing my clothes and that I would develop a strong smell which would attract tembo (elephants).  Tembo are dangerous and they also like to eat bananas and sugar cane.  It would not be good to encourage them to come to Mkuu.  We like bananas and sugar cane too!

            Sadly, the trees were toppled and men spent many days sawing the large trunks into planks.  The women and small children gathered the small limbs and branches and chopped them into pieces for firewood.  Things quieted down again in what used to be the woods surrounding my home, until one day as I stood in my classroom supervising a test, I heard students making noise outside.  I looked out the window and there they were in groups, each gathered around a large tree stump.  They had dug holes around the bases and had begun to hack away at the stumps with their axes.  This continued for several days until all the stumps had been removed.  One afternoon as I was returning home, I saw some students standing near my porch.  One was wrapping his leg with a long, dirty strip of cloth.  I asked what had happened and the boys told me that their friend had cut his leg while chopping stumps.  They were going to help him walk home.

 

            The disparity between education in Tanzania and education in America continues to astonish me.  I tried to imagine this same scenario being played out in the US.  The child comes home and mother asks, “What did you learn in school today?”  The child says, “We did not actually learn anything today.  We worked in the forest.” “What do you mean you worked in the forest?”  “We were chopping stumps.  We will be there all week.”  In shock and disbelief, the mother replies, “That is outrageous!  I am calling the principal and the superintendent and the police! My poor child let me see your hands.  How could they mistreat you like that?”  In comparison, I tried to envision the same situation in a Tanzanian context.  The child comes home and if anyone is around, maybe they would ask, “How was school today?”  The child would probably reply, “It was very good.  We worked in the forest chopping stumps.”  If they noticed the child limping or the strip of cloth around his leg, they might ask what had happened and the child might reply, “I cut my leg with my ax.” I imagine the parent looking shocked and disgusted.  “What do you mean you cut your leg with your ax?  You have been using an ax since you could walk.  How could you have done such a thing?  Tomorrow make sure that you do twice as much chopping as all of the other students as punishment for your carelessness.”

            Many of our students performed in a choir competition last week.  The school rented a small bus to transport them to Moshi.  I was at the road when they were boarding.  The students were packed in like sardines in a can two layers deep: one layer of students sitting on the seats, another layer sitting on their laps.  I said to the teacher chaperoning, “They are sitting like bananas!”  He replied, “No they are sitting like people, and I have arranged them according to their singing voice: alto, soprano, tenor, bass.”  He found a space hanging out the door and the bus pulled away.  The cramped bus ride apparently did not affect the students; they won second place. 

            I was flipping through my Kiswahili dictionary the other day and I was surprised to see Yuda’s name: “masumbuko,” the one the sister did not like.  It means “annoyances.”  I asked Aggie if that was so, and she said yes, it was true.  She believes that maybe that name has already had an effect on Yuda because he likes to touch everything, especially electronics.  (She also told me that Yuda’s older brother’s name is “Sikujui”: “I do not know you.”)  What were their parents thinking? Aggie likes to call Yuda “Enginea;” I will call him “Blessing.”

Maria

 Maria

July 11, 2011

            I had the recent pleasure of spending an entire week with Neema and Maria at my home in Mkuu.  If this is what it is like to be a grandmother, I am really looking forward to it.  I had a lot of fun, especially with Maria.  I say it jokingly, but there really is something special about Maria.  She is six now and is completing her second year of pre-primary school.  Already I am seeing the benefits of enrolling her in a good, private English medium school.  I am sure she speaks English better than Yuda.

            One afternoon, Maria and I were out on the porch coloring pictures.  A man on a motorcycle drove up, stopped, and asked me something in rapid fire Kiswahili.  Maria looked up at him and said in a stern voice, “Speak English!”  The man looked quite flustered and said nothing.  I thought he probably did not know how to speak English, so I saved him from embarrassment and repeated what I thought he said in Kiswahili.  I was right; he wanted to sell me charcoal for cooking.  (Too bad I am leaving soon, because my understanding of Kiswahili is really improving). 

            There are many things that Maria loves: braiding my hair and sticking flowers behind my ears, eating, singing, dancing, drawing pictures, watching movies, and reading books, but the thing Maria loves best is to talk.  One evening when the power was out, we were all sitting together in the living room, so I suggested that we tell stories.  Maria eagerly volunteered to go first.  She told some complicated tale in Kiswahili.  Aggie translated into English.  Maria said she had another story, so we encouraged her to tell it.  I was amazed when she started telling a story in English!  OK, it was a very short story, but the child was speaking English!  Another day we boarded a very crowded bus to go to town.  Some kind old woman told Maria to sit on her lap so that she would not be crushed in the crowd.  I was standing nearby, and I could hear Maria jabbering away.  Several times I heard her say my name in conversation and I heard the bibis laugh.  I am sure that those women now know all of my business.  I was not so upset, but when we arrived in town, Agness gave Maria quite a lecture about talking to strangers.  A few days later, Maria was once again carrying on an animated conversation with a stranger, and the lady turned to me and said, “I am a primary school teacher, and this child will be going to A-level for sure!”

            Thanks to friends and family, I now have many movies on my computer.  Aggie loves to watch American movies, but Yuda often loses interest half-way through because he does not know the language and has not had enough life experience to understand what is going on through context.  When Maria and Neema asked to watch a movie, I was not sure if they would understand enough to enjoy an American movie, and I have no Tanzanian movies.  Anyway, I decided to show them Up, an animated movie about a little boy and an old man.  Aggie had once told me that I really know how to speak to children (she probably really meant that I speak Kiswahili like a child), but I thought I would try my skills at translating the plot.  It seemed mostly to be for Neema’s benefit, because Maria seemed to follow the story pretty well.  Over the course of the week, we also watched Finding Nemo, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, and a couple of episodes of Harry Potter.  Translating a cartoon may not be so difficult, but how do you explain events in Harry Potter?  Leave it to Maria; she shrieked with laughter at all the funny scenes (remember Dudley’s pig tail) and shouted “Ery Pota, Ery Pota, toka! Toka!” (Harry Potter, Harry Potter, get away from there!  Get away from there!) when Harry was in especially precarious situations.  Movies can be so educational.  Throughout the week she summarized the stories for whoever cared to listen, and I often heard her saying, “Mr. Fredrikson, I am so tired!” and singing, “I like to move it, move it.”  When I took the girls to a restaurant in Moshi, we saw some goldfish in a tank.  Maria called out, “Ruthi, Ruthi!  Look, it is Nemo!”  Luckily she did not insist that we help him escape.

            Adorable little Maria, so intelligent, so clever, so funny; she can always make me laugh.  All Maria’s stories make me wonder about her story.  How will it turn out?  I sense her insecurity at times, like the night I woke up to find an arm wrapped tightly around my neck.  As I tried to extricate myself, she latched onto me like a leach.  I held her for a bit and then felt a quick kiss on my cheek.  I kissed the top of her head and after a few minutes, I once again heard the sound of her rhythmic snoring.  I gently rolled her back onto her side of the bed.  In addition to her loving nature, she also has a very stubborn side.  She lives a difficult life, and I wonder which aspect of her personality will become the stronger one.  Will she grow up to have a compassionate heart helping out the needy, or will she become a mercenary soldier fighting only for herself?   She insists that she is coming to America to visit me one day, so maybe I will have the opportunity to find out. 

            God bless Maria, protect her spirit, and help her to grow strong in your love.