My lovely teacher

Sona is my Malayalam teacher. I asked around for a teacher and never expected that she would show up in the form of this beautiful young girl. She lives in one of the shacks near our house. Every morning her grandmother lights a fire in the shack to cook their food. We meet on the beach wall every evening at 5. I bring my note books and she brings a lesson plan. She is dedicated, courteous, loving, fun and committed. She has a confidence beyond her years combined with a childs delight.

The lesson plan here was on sound words which I think are like accents in French. The sounds in Malayalam are so very different to anything I know in any other language. They are so very subtle. Some sounds I just can't make and that is the source of much hilarity (of the nicest kind) with some of the other neighbours. We laugh a lot together.

I teach many people around the world in my work and Sona teaches me. I have told her this. Sometimes she and her sister accompanied by their grandmother come and sit on our verandah to do their homework. I suspect it is when the father is out of control with drink like so many of the local men here. One night the grandmother was carrying a stick.

I am going to miss Sona very much. We are going to write to each other but I have never seen a postman here. We will be back next winter and even if we are not in the same house we are going to meet at 5 on the wall. I wonder what her future holds. I pray it is good.