Last month, I measured Mr. Manzi against the wall in my house. In typical 7-year-old fashion, for the next two days, he came over put his hand on top of his head and moved it to the wall to see if he had grown any.

Emmanuel, the high schooler who cleans my house, has also picked up ironing duties to make more money. He lives just down the lane about 200m. After he finished ironing my clothes, he asked if he could borrow the iron so that he could iron his clothes. I said sure, and went to put the iron in a bag for him to take home. He said, “Tim, I don’t have electricity at my house.” I had completely forgotten about this.

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to break the news to Manzi that I will be leaving Rwanda soon. Without missing a beat, he said, “And you’re going to bring me back a turtle.” The other day he said that he checked with his father and he can go to the U.S. with me.

Our 11th graders were learning poetic devices yesterday. I asked Emmanuel to express how lovely Alice, the student sitting next to him, was using a simile or metaphor. He thought about it for a bit and said, “Alice is a beautiful as a banana.” She wasn’t happy.

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