I have been tutoring Isaka everyday since I have been here. Isaka is one of the smartest children at the orphanage and he is one of the happiest and easy-going as well. He is a joy, and it so very easy to work with him.
Isaka was born on April 12, 1998, just outside of Karatu. His father dies from HIV in 2003,, and shortly thereafter, his mother disappeared and has not been heard from since. After he disappearance, Isaka and his younger sister Evlalina, went to live with their aunt at one of the coffee plantation workcamp villages. However, their aunt was aleady caring for 7 other children. Although the aunt truly watned to care for Isaka and Eva, their the two room house simply could not accommodate so many people. So, the Rift Valley Children’s Village was contacted, and they took Eva and Isaka.
Isaka adjusted quickly to being one of the oldest children here and understands that the other children look up to him. He has taken on a leadership role with a maturity beyond his years. When a child cries, Isaka runs to help cheer him up. When anyone is unable to communicate because of language barriers, children or adults, Isaka happily serves as translator.
In spite of all this, of course, he is still a child who has lost both parents.
We were working together this morning, doing our normal routine of math facts. We have transitioned this week from addition to subtraction. I gave him the sheet of simple subtraction facts I had made up earlier in the morning. Isaka zoomed through the 28 math facts, cheerful and easy-going as ever. He happily gave me the sheet when he was finished and adults and kids came and went as I looked it over. I checked the ones that were correct (26 of them1) and circled the two that were wrong and has him to correct them. He quickly saw his mistakes and fixed them. We moved on the next sheet of more subrtraction work, but in a flash of an instant, Isaka was sullen. He wouldn’t talk to me, he wouldn’t look up at me. He anxiously looked past me into the front room. I couldn’t refocus him on what we were doing, and he wouldn’t tell me what he was thinking. I started to worry. Had someone said something to him in Swahili and I had missed it? Did someone he was scared of, or nervous about enter the room? I couldn’t get anything out of him. Maybe he had slipped into thinking about his parents or family, and was getting sad.
So, I thought we should just pick up our things and go for a walk. Perhaps a change of space and scenery would allow him to feel comfortable again and start to talk. Isaka is normally a kind of kid who never shuts up, and now I can’t get anything out of him. As we walked, he wouldn’t hold my hand, as is normal for him. So I said, “Let’s go sit, and I will give you all the time you need to tell me what’s happening, because I don’t understand.” At this point, I see Isaka crying. My heart starts to ache.
We sit down, and I hold out both my hands, palms open and up, and I point at my hand and say, “Isaka, this left hand is you being sad, this right hand is you being mad. How are you feeling?” He points to my right hand. “Isaka,” I said, “This left hand is you being mad at me, this right hand is you being mad at something else. How are you feeling?” Isaka points at my left hand! I can’t believe it! My heart breaks. What could I have done? I can’t figure it out and he won’t tell me. It just stands silently crying. Finally, I ask him if the problem is that he doesn’t know how to tell me in English what I have done to make him mad, and would he like us to go get one of the student teachers who can help translate. Isaka strongly shakes his head “no,” with a worried look on his face. So, I told him he would then have to tell me. So, he picks up the old math sheet, and points at the two problems he initially got wrong and says, “You gave me a zero in math.”
Isaka thought the by circling the two he had gotten wrong, I had failed him in his work. I tried and tried to explain that this was just not true, and that he had done very, very well. He just wouldn’t believe me. We finally ended our session without me being able to convince him any differently.
I felt so awful I wanted to cry.
I went and found India Howell, the director and found for The Rift Valley Children’s Village. I tell him what happened, and she gently looks at me and says, “Oh Sam, I am so sorry that happened. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me.”
India goes on to explain the pressure these young African orphans put on themselves. First, they are fighting the emotional trauma of losing parents. They very often believe that they are at least partially responsible for their parent’s death. They also are know enough to realize that they are escaping awful and extreme poverty by being in this orphanage. They eat 3 healthy meals a day, get decent medical care when they are sick, and have people who love and nurture them, while 350 other children at their school don’t. Finally, they are not used to adults not giving up on them, and in fact, if they fail in important ways, they can become abused and/or neglected.
All of this combined can sometimes be a recipe for them growing up putting a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect in pleasing the adults around them., and Isaka is very much a kid like that. His misinterpreting my circles sent him a message that after all these days of working together, Isaka thought I saw him as a failure, and who knows what conclusions he began to draw up in his mind.
It may seem like a small thing, but it wasn’t for Isaka, and I have got to say, it was no small thing for me. Seeing his tears, and then piecing together what those tears where about, has knocked the wind out of me emotionally. I have grown to really love and care about Isaka. It hurts to think about how much he must overcome.
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