We will remember you

June 3

Successful day of play it seems (seems- a verb of incomplete prediction. Getting pretty good at this whole English teacher thing, I know.) It doesn’t take an English teacher to write about a good day though. We played the scrambled sentence game again with the other group at the high school. Their cheering about shattered my eardrums. It’s a good thing the headmistress likes us, or we would probably be in a lot of trouble. Certainly my favorite part of the day though is after church when the girls stay to talk and play games with us. Today they brought us Bangla sentences to read. They forced me to read the first sentence not knowing what it meant, and upon finishing they burst out into giggles and cheers. Apparently it meant “I like you”. The next two were “You look beautiful” and “I love you” both of which were followed by even more cheers and more giggling (teenage girls will be teenage girls no matter where you are in the world). The next one I attempted read Ami tomake mone rakhbo. After this one they didn’t really cheer. They smiled, but they took on a more somber demeanor. I asked what it meant.

“I will remember you” spoke up one of the girls softly while they all looked down shyly at their feet.

“You will remember us?” questioned one of the girls, hoping for reassurance.

For some reason and I don’t know why, it’s a strongly ingrained in the Mandi woman’s mind to fear that they will be forgotten. They even have a song about two lovers, that goes “Do not forget me….dah dah dah dah dah” (I don’t know the Mandi part). Even in my last class at the NGO World Vision, the only woman in my class, who had hardly spoken a word the entire six weeks, raised her hand and asked, “Maybe when you go, you will forget us?”

I cannot count the amount of times I had to reassure these people I would not forget them. I took a moment, and then I responded, “I promise, I will always remember you.” I almost felt guilty that I had to say it. How could I ever forget them? I had barely been there a few weeks, and my life was turned upside down by their beauty, by their innocence, by their love.