Small World

Yesterday an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed after leaving Beirut, Lebanon.  I’m not sure what the cause of the accident was, but there were no survivors.  When I was informed of this incident, I immediately became worried.  23 Ethiopians were on board that flight.  Amen, one of the top students in grade 2, had told me earlier in the morning that her mother’s plane was missing.  When the flight didn’t arrive, her dad called the airline and they simply said that the plane went missing and they were looking into it.  After hearing about the plane crash, I casually confronted Amen again, asking if she knew what country her mom’s flight was coming from.  She said all she knew is that it was an Arab country.

I informed Mr. Zelalem that there was a chance one of our student’s mother was on that plane, just in case.  This morning Amen was at school.  I asked her the usual “how are you?” and she said “I’m fine, thank you” without missing a beat.  I asked if her mom made it back yet and Amen said she hadn’t.  Then she said “I’m sad but I’m also happy”.  That was odd.  “I’m sad because she’s not here yet, but I’m happy because the plane that crashed yesterday was another flight – not hers.”  THANK YOU, GOD!  Amen had the chance to talk to her mom yesterday and apparently her plane did go missing, but they were ok.  I don’t really understand what happened, but I am so thankful her mother is ok.  I can’t imagine trying to help a seven-year-old deal with the death of her mother.

There are students at our school who have lost their parents.  I can’t imagine having lost my parents at such a young age.  Now that I am older (I’m finally realizing my age), I also think about how it would feel to be the husband given the responsibility of raising your four children without a mother.  Having to mourn the loss of your love and take care of your children who, too, are having a hard time with the loss.

Yesterday in Virtues class, I found out that Nafyad’s aunt died in the Haitian earthquake.  It’s amazing how small our world really is.  A letter was sent from a Baha’i in Haiti named LInda and it was forwarded to me.  I forwarded it to some Baha’is here in Addis and one of them responded, asking if it was from Linda Gershuny.  I haven’t heard back if it’s the same woman, but I received an email from a Full-Circle Learning school in California.  We’re going to send an email with students’ hand-typed letters to Haitian students who were being assisted by this Californian Full-Circle Learning school.  The woman in charge of the school in Haiti is Linda Gershuny.  Small world.

My crowning moment of today was when I was talking with Ms. Tsehay about how high school and undergraduate education works in the States.  We talked a little bit about my aspirations to be a physician and she said “you look like a doctor”.  I mean, yes, I wear the white coat every day here at school, but I look like a doctor?  AWESOME.