Estefania

Sunday, September 2, 2007

She has the most beautiful caramel skin and springs of coffee-colored curls fall just below her shoulders. She is not exactly shy but not exactly boisterous either. Her smiles are frequent, despite the amount of stress she's under with a new home, a new school, a new language, a new culture, a new country. But her big chocolate eyes--though crossed most of the time--never cease to twinkle when someone says her name. Estefania hasn't had the easiest time adjusting to her new life in the U.S.A. Fresh from Mexico, the first day of first grade proved much more difficult than just the normal first-day jitters. Estefania needed to use the restroom. She knew she needed to go. She knew where the restroom was. She knew she had to ask the teacher permission to get up to use the restroom, just as she had in Mexico during kindergarten. But she didn't know how. So she held it. And held it. And held it. And finally she could hold no more. Estefania wet all over herself, and it embarrassed her so. "Oh, how do I tell the teacher? Oh, how do I ask her if I can go to the bathroom?" Her teacher noticed sometime later, as Estefania rose from her seat to line up to go to the cafeteria for lunch. She called in the ELL teacher (me) to call Estefania's parents (for they didn't speak English either, and I was the only bilingual adult in the building who could communicate with them) to inform them that their child would be arriving home wearing clothes borrowed from the school supply closet. To make matters worse, Estefania repeated the accident a few days later. From either a mix of nerves and excitement or the sheer fear of disobeying the teacher by getting out of her seat without permission, Estefania wet all over herself a second time. This broke my heart for this precious little girl. Can you imagine how it must have felt to know she needed to use the restroom but not be able to get up to go because she did not know how to ask if she could? Though I've now taught her how to ask this simple question (she says, "I go to bathroom?") she will remember the embarrassment of the incident for the rest of her life.