Miss M

I'll never forget this day.

Last winter, my co-teacher (Mr. G) and I were taking attendance in our 10th grade co-taught World Civilization class. As my mind should have been on lesson plans and IEP meetings, it was not. My thoughts back then were all about that crazy transitional time of switching from Taiwan to Ethiopia. I had just sent our agency application off a few days before, so all I could think about was, "Oh my God, was that the right choice? And Ethiopia of all places? What? Why? How?"

Shortly after attendance, the door opened and in walked one of the most beautiful girls that I had ever seen. She was followed by a counselor and an adult man. Mr. G and I were pulled aside and informed that this was Miss M, she was just adopted and brought here from Ethiopia the week prior, and because she was so terrified, her adopted dad was going to sit in by her for this first class.

(Insert: Yes... you fate believers, even though my ever evolving spirituality is typically sitting on the fence, if there ever was an example of a "God send intervention", I agree that this would have to be it. I mean, I just sent off my application that very week that this girl stepped into my life? What the....?)

The poor thing did look so terrified, I seriously wanted to cry for her. In a class of about 42 kids, I am sure all she saw was a sea of white, intimidating, English speaking, upper class teens (though there were about 5 other ethnicities - including 2 African American and one student that had recently immigrated from Africa).

After class I swiftly pulled her (and her dad) aside, introduced myself, and offered to be with her the rest of the day. From then on, Miss M. and I have built a wonderfully unique teacher/student relationship as we are both equal teacher and learner. Because the classes that I co-teach in are generally modified for struggling learners, she has been scheduled into many of them so that I can help with language development. For me, her cultural lessons have been simply invaluable. For her, I believe that she just needed that person (outside of her awesome adoptive family) to listen to her stories of ET, her experience of adoption at age 15, and the process of assimilating into a new culture.

Husband was even pulled into this unique relationship simply by being the person I would come home to share with.

"Guess was Miss M shared with me today? She pulled up her pant leg and started pointing out her scars. Each scar represented a story of hardship and neglect that accompanied her life as a child of the streets in Addis Ababa."

"Did you know that Miss M was selling toilet paper on the streets from age 4 until she was picked up at age 9 (literally - by a van) for an educational sponsorship program? Apparently, she was a lucky one!"

She is remarkable in many, many ways. She is insightful, compassionate, resilient, very bright, and determined. She has found a new friend. She's another beautiful girl that recently immigrated here from Somalia. Not only does this girl face the challenge of being a refugee, but she is also deaf (she is part of the integrated school for the deaf). Just to make a hard situation harder, she started the school last year pregnant (and now raising her baby). I've been watching them develop this relationship through what seems a mutual, unspoken understanding between the two of them; sort of like an, "I just get it - I get you and you get me." We made sure to get Miss M into a signing class. She is now not only learning English but also ASL so that she can communicate with her new friend. Just another reason that this girl impresses the pants off of me!

Her story would take me all day to write about (and I have encouraged HER to write her story). Even though she most likely views me as a nice teacher/advocate that has been kind enough to listen, I am sure she does not realize how much I look forward to her waiting by my door in the mornings. She waits so that she can keep me updated on the current events of her life - all of which are a lesson for myself.

Today when she stopped by my room, I mustered up the courage to ask her a question that I had not felt comfortable asking until this day. I told her that my heart was feeling heavy lately with wondering if our daughter will one day show resentment to us for taking her from her birth country - or people that look like her - and raising her in a community that is primarily white. I wanted her opinion on this.

Miss M gave me a very mature, to-the-point response. She told me that it is natural and good to think about this, but to not think too much about it because even though this might cross our daughter's mind eventually, she (Miss M) knows that we will be great parents and that our daughter will really never truly understand what her life would have been like. Miss M felt like she was a kid that, like all the other kids she knew in ET, was loved by her immidaite family, but not cared for by anyone else - such as the government. The hardships she faced as a young girl (hunger, neglect, child labor, abuse, discrimination as a female, minimal educational opportunities) was not right and that if she would have stayed there, her future would have been bleak at best. She feels that she had it better than most because the rural girls (the ones carrying water for hours each day) have it much worse. Even though she is very homesick, she said that she would never question or feel remorse and anger for her adoption - only gratitude to her adoptive family for giving her such an opportunity.

I walked away from that conversation feeling better and humbled. Do I feel better about the fact that we are adopting a girl? Yes, I do. Do I now feel like I am "saving" a child from those conditions? No, not really. I still feel that selfish twinge in that she is saving us more. But I do feel a desire, more than ever, to give back to that country for what she is going to give us; sponsorship, humanitarian trips, etc. Is my ego big enough to think that my altruistic motivation of Husband and I together changing a country in ways that adoption will no longer be needed? Certainly not! But at least I hope that we can make a teeny tiny, itty bitty difference for a few people.

I am closing this post with a huge "Thank You!" to Miss M and the hope that our friendship - and even new relationship with our daughter (Miss M being a role model perhaps?) - can carry over for years to follow.