Liya: The 5-Year-Old Who Stole My Heart

November 27, 2008

Have you ever felt that all your friends are pairing off left and right, leaving you feeling like maybe you should start making a more serious effort to find someone too instead of just letting the river run its course? Nowhere has this feeling been more pronounced than in the tiny, isolated community of teachers here at the school. Not that I fancy anyone in particular here, but just the fact that even in this tiny group, people have been pairing off left and right- it makes me feel like I must be mad not to be jumping on the couples wagon with everyone else. What'd I say about love and the law of gravity back in September or October? It seems to be playing out just the way I predicted, though the particular couples that have formed have been a great surprise. Who would've thunk? 

My own heart has been stolen by a 5-year-old named Liya. I've mentioned her before on this blog- she's the one in my kindergarten class with the great imagination, the whimsical personality. From day 1, she never cried. For the first month or two, she came to school every day wearing 11 little bracelets on her left wrist and silver sandals with a heart embossed on each. Every time we counted hearts that I drew on the whiteboard during math warm-up, she took great pleasure in lifting up her stockinged foot and showing me the silver hearts on her sandals. “Miss Angie, I have heart!” she would say with the excitement and the shining eyes of one who has just made a great new discovery. In the same way, she would tug at my arm and show me her newest discovery- skipping, for instance, from one leg to the other, arms swinging to and fro. She took a great liking to twirling after the time I played “Aquarium” from the Carnival of the Animals Suite for the class and picked out students one by one and waltzed with them around the room to the beautiful tune. I did this in order to show them the connection between music and dancing, and music and counting. Liya took to it like a duck on water. 

Liya has a heart indeed, a great one full of wonder- the heart of an explorer. She also has a great love of treasures, always eyeing my stickers and other prizes with a treasure-seeker's glint in her dark eyes. “Miss Angie,” she'd say tugging at my arm, and whispering loudly with her hand cupped to my ear, “I want 2 cranes! I want 3, no 4 cranes!” and nodding with shining eyes, as if she was letting me in on the greatest idea in the world. This is one of the things I love most about Liya, the way she says everything as if it were a delicious secret, or a great discovery. Last week, she came to school with a new pen. “Miss Angie, look! I have magic pencil!” “Wow, why is it magic?” I asked. I thought it might be a led pencil- the children here only use regular pencils and sharpeners for some reason. But nope, it turned out to be a pen- the kind you click on and off. “I like magic,” said Liya with whole-hearted belief in its existence. Me too Liya! 

I find myself wondering how in the world a child like this was brought into existence and raised. How amazing her parents must be to nurture such an extraordinary kid! It's hard to find out the background of these kids- where they are from, who they live with, etc.- because they are only 4 and 5. They get confused when I ask them what their father does for work. One kid said “computer”. Another kid said “computer games”. “Your father plays games for work?” I asked, laughing inside. The kid nodded uncertainly. He's probably the Minister of Education, or something equally as posh, but his kid just told me he plays computer games all day. One day, though, the first day it rained here in Erbil, I taught them how to say “it's raining”, and told them to go home and tell their father “it rained today!” “Miss Angie!” cried Liya, “I no have father!” “You don't? Where is he? Where's your baba?” She didn't know. She said she had a mother, though, and that she would tell her it rained today. “Okay, Liya,” I replied with some concern. I wondered where her father was, whether he was even alive.

This past week, I brought in my guitar and played and sang for the first time for my KG class. It was a huge hit in general, but no one was more entranced by it than Liya. While other kids around her stood up and tried to touch the guitar and giggled and looked at each other as if it were a huge game, Liya sat in her little chair with an absolute stillness that belied her age. Her eyes were cast in the direction of the guitar, but the look in them made me think her mind was elsewhere. Where, in what sort of fantasy land she was now lost in, I could only wish to know. What her mind was making of the music, I could only guess at, knowing only that it had to be wonderful and amazing because it was all happening in Liya's mind. 

Recently I started rewarding my KG'ers for independent work (finishing their work by themselves), and it's become a source of frustration because now all the kids just copy off the paper of the smart kid next to them and hold up their page expecting a sticker and the usual exaggerated praise. It drives me crazy because I'm busy trying to teach the class, and have to interrupt the flow to praise and reward them, and weed out the ones who just copied off their smart neighbor. “Wait for Miss Angie!” I have started to say to these cheaters. “You must wait for Miss Angie!” My frustration must have shown because one day, when I said “Wait for Miss Angie!” for the millionth time, a little voice piped up and said earnestly,  “I am waiting for you.” It was Liya. My heart melted right then and there for the girl. I wanted to hug her. Instead, I only said “thank you Liya” from the bottom of my heart. And maybe I gave her a sticker, I don't remember.

At the end of the day, I went down to the bus shed for the second time to see my kids off. I saw Shene and Hoz again (and stopped by to give the little midget another lift onto the bus), and some of my 2nd graders, as well as some of the 7th graders whose exam I had proctored earlier that day. Then I looked for bus no. 11, which I knew was Liya and Mohammed #1's bus. “Hi Liya! Hi Mohammed!” I said as I peeped my head into the tent-like darkness. It was the most joyful reunion you could ever imagine! We hugged like long-lost friends, and in a voice bubbling over with excitement, she started introducing every single person on the bus to me, as if I were her father coming back after a long absence, and she wanted to show me every aspect of her life that I had missed while I'd been away. In fact, somewhere in between all the introductions, she told me that her father was coming home today. So he was alive after all! I was so happy for her. And her father. As the last person got on the bus, and it was about to leave, she opened up her arms for a last hug goodbye. “I love you, Miss Angie,” she said. “I love you too, Liya,” I murmured as I held her dark head against my waist, my heart once again melting like ice cream on a hot summer's day.