Meaning

This thank you note means something to me.

Barb Sorensen

B.P. 2030

BRAZZAVILLE

Rep. of Congo, Central Africa

May 11, 2011

Dear Lori,

I want to thank you so much for all you gave to the female inmates - they so appreciated your generosity. The cloth you had I cut into 3 so 3 women would have a cloth skirt. Your shoes and socks went into the male prison - I see your sox each Friday now!

Thanks again Lori -

Lord bless you -

Barb

On July 23, 2011, I sent Barb this response.

Hello Barb and Lejuste,

I got Barb's thank you note (letter) today and it was so lovely. The letter touched my heart. I was laughing because my feet are really big. The thought of Congolese male prisoners at the jail wearing my big socks was a wonderful image. And the skirts that you made with the material for the women prisoners- I am so happy to know that my clothes went to people who really need them. Thanks Lejuste for sending the letter to me in the States. You two are both wonderful friends.

Lori

p.s. Barb told me in a later message that she has seen my socks at the prison but not my brown Crocs. I loved those brown Crocs, but my Congolese friends said they were tacky shower shoes and not appropriate for a teacher to wear outside the house.

Amy Tan: A Teacher On Every Page

A Master Teacher

I am currently reading Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses and with every paragraph, I absorb and appreciate this writer's fluency of human expression on the page.

"I learned to make things not matter, to put a seal on my hopes and place them on a high shelf, out of reach. And by telling myself that there was nothing inside those hopes anyway, I avoided the wounds of deep disappointment. The pain was no worse than the quick sting of a booster shot. And yet thinking about this makes me ache again" (p. 8).


"One day Miss Banner touched her palm on the front of her body and asked me how to say this in Chinese. After I told her, she said to me in Chinese: 'Miss Moo, I wish to know many words for talking about my breasts!' And only then did I realize she wanted to talk about the feelings in her heart. The next day, I took her wandering around the city. We saw people arguing. Anger, I said. We saw a woman placing food on an alter. Respect, I said. We saw a thief with his head locked in a wooden yoke. Shame, I said. We saw a young girl sitting by the river, throwing an old net with holes into the shallow part of the water. Hope, I said" (p. 48).