Nazma

Jodi amar ma mure gelo, amar keu nai...
"If my mother dies, I'll have no one..."

Tears welled up in Nazma's eyes, and this spunky, fiery 18 year-old suddenly looked much smaller, sitting on the other side of my desk. She had sunk into the chair from which my students ask questions about analysis versus evaluation, but for Nazma's questions this morning, I had no "teacher's" answer. "Amar ma beshi oshusto." -- "My mother is very sick," she was explaining. "Yesterday, we went to the doctor. They did many tests. We don't know what's wrong.... Please pray for her. I have no one besides my mother. I'm alone. I have no one besides my mother." She repeated those words as round tears slid down her soft, dark cheeks.... amar keu nai...

Nazma is not a student, as her uniform of black trousers, an oversize red polo shirt, and a black scarf clearly indicate. She sweeps and mops the buildings where girls her age spend the days in classrooms and dorms, weaving big dreams. They'll be the "future leaders of Asia" according to our AUW mission. They dream of starting NGOs, becoming policy writers, lawyers, scientists, activists, presidents.... Nazma sits at my desk hoping that her mother will make it through the year. This dream is now eclipsing her own dreams for education. She wonders why she can't be learning at AUW, rather than washing it's grimy dishes. This question bothers me too...

Nazma's father died when she was three or four. Last year her house burned down, taking with it years and years of dowry savings. She is the youngest of several siblings who are all married now.

Nazma is smart. She was solely responsible for securing high-paying cleaning jobs in AUW professors' apartments for her two sisters and her brother's wife. She is constantly networking and negotiating, usually on behalf of others. She is spirited and generous, but can also be pushy and demanding, which has paid off immensely for her family. But she is still tremendously vulnerable as an unmarried, uneducated woman in Bangladesh. I find myself avoiding that haunting question, "Why was this her fate and not mine?"  Or I spin some pacifying answer such as, "I'm teaching young women of Asia so that they can change the situation of the Nazmas in their communities." But right now I just feel dully speechless.

I move to Nazma's side of the desk, put my arm around her small shoulders and say, "You have us, you're not alone. You have brothers and sisters..."
She answers, Bhaibon, tomra... Mar motto na... "They're not like a mother. No one is like Mother. She is everything."

There's nothing I can say. I tell Nazma I'll pray. I can't even imagine going about today the way she has to, wondering what she will hear from the doctor this afternoon when she collects the results of the tests. She knows they won't be good...  I've met Nazma's mother -- when she was relatively healther. And even then, she looked frail far beyond her years. I remember thinking she was a grandmother.

"Don't you have class today?" Nazma asks me.
"Yes, at 8:30."
"Kaj koro," she tells me to get back to work.
"Korbo. I will."  Before she leaves, I pull out a little book of my students' writings that we compiled last week. I give Nazma a copy and tell her that my students had written about their relatives' love stories. We open up the first page to a sweet little story written by a Vietnamese student about her aunt and uncle. Nazma reads it beautifully, and I translate a few words here and there, but overall am stunned by the ability of this young woman who was forced to quit education before high school.

The story makes us smile, and at least for a moment we have forgotten the fear of death, anger at injustice, and the sadness that silenced us a few minutes ago. Nazma picks up a broom and I pick up a red pen and we reassume our roles.