By Emily Provance
I NEVER KNEW HER NAME, but she sat there wiggling in a Tweety Bird sweatshirt. School in Loltuleilei, Kenya, was supposed to start at 6:00pm for the shepherds, but my little friend couldn’t tell time, or didn’t have a clock--or maybe didn’t care. Whatever it was, she showed up at the Friends’ church every day by 5:15pm.
I figured, as long as she was there, I might as well teach her something, so I wrote on the chalkboard “8 + 3.” Then I turned around, raised my eyebrows, and passed her the chalk. (We didn’t share a language, little Tweety Bird and I.)
She drew eight circles, then three more, than wrote “ = 11.” Her eyes shone.
Okay. I tried “8 – 3.” With a grin, she drew eight circles, crossed out three, and wrote “ = 5.” She had a little swagger in her step. She knew she impressed me.
So I taught her to multiply.
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