apple

The moment I can't get out of my head is of the chirpy student in yesterday's language class - the one who worked so hard to say Friday. At the break she came up to me and the full-time teacher and said Teacher, teacher! and held out a perfect apple. She mimed a saw; we should cut it in half to share. The teacher didn't want to take it and politely repeated no thank you. But she kept trying to give it to us, so I put out both hands and accepted.

I'm eating the apple now and it feels like something holy. Because someone who has next to nothing - who had her roots pulled out and was roughly transplanted in foreign soil with strange f-sounds and endless paperwork - somewhere, she learned that you should bring an apple to the teacher. So she did.

These are the kinds of moments that knock me over.