My first stint as an ESL teacher

A few years ago--long before the days of China came into being--I taught esl to an Egyptian Janitor at Lipscomb University. His name was Magdi Girgis, and he was a short Arabic man with a head full of graying hair and moustache to match. He had never really picked up much English, and I don't believe ever will. But every Thursday around seven he would show up with his Oxford English for Beginners book in the small little room underneath the newly renovated Ward Lecture Auditorium (complete with a Steinway!) and he and I would banter back and forth in English and Arabic.

We never accomplished much. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I'm pretty sure he didn't want to learn English. He would point at a picture and he would say "Kreall?" and I would pronounce "Cereal," with forty-two separate syllables and drag it out until saying the word lasted longer than five minutes (which, by the way, have you ever looked at the word cereal? I will forever have pity for people trying to learn english). And then I would explain just what "Cereal" was and then he would catch on and write it in Arabic and show it to me. I would nod in fascination, and the cycle would repeat itself. We never went much beyond that. And the lessons ended after one semester.

And a third of the time we didn't even meet. Either he wouldn't show up or I couldn't make it. I used to dread fighting the frigid wind and the cold that sunk into the bones only to find that Magdi had already gone home for the day. The first time it happened I showed up and asked every Janitor in the building where he was before deducing he wasn't coming. All of the other times I would sit in the cold, dead classroom for fifteen minutes and then leave. Once or twice I did it to him too, but I can imagine him walking in five minutes late, seeing I wasn't there, and walking right back out to enjoy his break in some place warm. I'm pretty sure no love was lost.

And one time I walked in at seven o'clock to find him and a friend drinking iced whiskey right in the lobby outside of Ward. It was one of the greatest sights I have ever seen. Two janitors boldly breaking the draconian laws of an establishment that didn't care enough, nor had any power, over the lower-income workers. I can just see the President--or whomever enforces those rules--in that situation turning the other way like it was the sheriff at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird. Those two men were the carnivalesque or the upside-down kingdom at work. Two guys from a different culture who didn't care about ridiculousness of it all. Two guys who were invincible from the very organization that gave them a living. They had power. They were also pretty far gone by the time I got there. Of course I sat down and had a couple of drinks with them (just kidding!), but I did sit and talk long enough to make walking over there worth it. And then I left smiling my head off.

I will never forget Magdi, as little influence that he had on my life. He always walked around in a cloud of cigarette smoke and hardly ever smiled. As if some Deity was punishing him for something that he did, and the punishment was America, away from family, friends, a language that made sense and into a disrespectful, cursed culture with weather reminiscent of Dante's ninth circle of hell. I always felt sorry for him. He probably didn't ask to be sixty years old and cleaning up after spoiled, egocentric American kids for a living, but he would probably be doing that until he died. You could tell he was always thinking about home. His eyes always had the glazed over, far-off look as if they were seeing something that would never be seen again; reminiscing over the past and disregarding the future. He was a tortured soul, and there is no telling just what he is doing now. Hey may still be a janitor at Lipscomb, or he may not. I hope he made it home though. I really do.