Faces and Voices – Children

A School Room

(In one of the camps, a super-sized Periodic Table of the Elements was painted on the exterior wall. In another, a math class was in session, and the room was filled with young students. There were no calculators or textbooks. What they were saying to their teacher and vice versa was impossible to know, because they were speaking Tigrinya. But the language of mathematics is more or less universal. The language of eagerness and astuteness is universal as well, and its presence was apparent in the children’s eyes and waving arms.)

“I know! I know!”

(This is what they all seemed to be shouting at once.)