When I met and married a Japanese man in New York, I thought he would learn a bit more English and we would continue to live our lives there. But in life's twists and turns, we ended up living in Tokyo! I was the one who needed to learn Japanese and fast! There is no experience quite as lonely as living in a foreign country without a grasp of the language. Especially to make friends and to break that loneliness, it is the first and foremost goal to attain... always an uphill climb, while totally awkward!
I was a trained English Language teacher, and while I lived abroad I did that work, and when we moved back to America I planned to continue it. The country's financial difficulties at the time, however, saw deep cuts to the English as a second language in schools and to refugee language programs. So I simply took a job in a department store, at its Child Playroom.
But this store was located near a major company that hired some of its workforce from many other countries. Often a preschooler in my playroom could not speak a word of English, and would look so lost and lonely! My heart flew to them! We interacted with each other a lot. We would play English language games and they would teach their language to me.
Years later, when a small girl who had come from South America could speak good English, she said to me, "Teacher, remember when I called you Maestra?"Another child whose language was only Russian originally-we built a robot from blocks and fed it block food and learned English words that way-would come years afterwards and continue to play that same game! These moments became my life compass-due north is that place where when persons are different, Love Matters!
