called to wonder
Radhiya Ayobami: episodes in the life of a writer as a nomadic substitute teacher
“Damballah & Ayida Wedo & Erzulie Freda Dahomey, in progress,” 2011. Image: Judith Pudden
Radhiyah Ayobami presents excerpts from her work in progress, “urban nomad,” an essay collection about her nomadic life as a writer and educator throughout California and her native New York City. “nightmares & blessings” appears in Aster(ix), 9 November 2020.
california: ms. are
so this week, i’m called to a school that’s nearly all spanish-speaking, as many schools
now are.
in my class are two round brown girls who spend most of the day holding hands. they both have a mane of hair braided into tiny cornrows with sparkly beads & matching pink converse, and every time i look over at them, they’re giggling.
even though i’m busy, i look at them often. there’s something so old-fashioned & joyful about them. i’ve seen many children not well cared for and dealing with grownup drama. they come into class and lay their small heads down on the desks in the morning. but these two girls are light.
at recess, they amble over to me, still holding hands, and ask the age-old question at the same time: are you african? my inner self says, i'm part of the african diaspora & the great migration from the american south...my outer self looks at their toothy grins and says, yes. and they say, african is beautiful! and run off, giggling.
some of the other students don't speak much english, so i spend the day smiling, patting heads, passing out snacks, and reading a little. i want them to feel safe with me, even though we don’t share the same language.
at the end of class, i pass out paper & crayons and tell them i won’t be back tomorrow. i see the little brown girls circulating to different tables, and i figure they probably shouldn't be doing that, but the class is content and working peacefully, so i let them be.
when parents started drifting in, i greet them and start cleaning the classroom, and things get busy, so i don’t get to tell the girls goodbye. but on top of the teacher's desk is a pile of paper i didn’t see before.
the kids had organized themselves and made some cards for me.
Courtesy Radhiyah Ayobami
manhattan: little miss
i'm called to an upscale school that charges liberal arts master's degree tuition.
(ask me how i know.)
i take the assignment because i like the location, and the commute is pleasant.
after riding the bus, i walk a mile by the water to school. the students, parents, and teachers are mostly international, and almost every adult speaks multiple languages, has multiple degrees, and life experiences that would make for really good memoirs. (i'm there for a month before i meet another black american woman who floats through the hallways in flowing clothes, and we both smile at each other right away.)
i don't expect to fit in at this school, but i do. my experience and interest have been mainly working with black and brown children in severely underfunded schools: locked bathrooms, no tissue, barred windows, printers and laptops that don't work, and a lunch that gives you just enough time to buy corner-store coffee in a paper cup and to cry—and even those tears need to be brief. you only have thirty minutes.
in this new school, where a good deal of the population cycles in and out of countries and high-ranking places, i have a ball sauntering around in my department-store dresses & headscarves, helping the children with projects like book-making and sculpting, while they tell me stories about europe and the middle east, and how the heat in japan is different from the heat in dubai. there's plenty of everything: a whole library of books to wander and browse through, working laptops for students and teachers, wipes and hand sanitizers and windows that open, and, in the staff lounge, coffee and snacks in a room with a view of new york city that's enough to break your heart.
during the day, i talk and laugh with the kids, we get through the work, they leave the classroom for play and specialized lessons, and i roll to the lovely lounge, where i read and snack and watch folks moving through the city. my whole day becomes a meditation. and so it happens that i have passed almost a season here. of course, i don't have the responsibilities regular teachers do—i don't lesson plan or attend meetings or navigate the complex emotions that fly around schools when the months get long. still, i have to remind myself not to get too comfortable at this spot. what would that mean for my semi-nomadic lifestyle?
there are very few black students here. i would say something like two for each grade, and sometimes not even that. in nearly every class i'm sent to, there's a single african girl, and we have a series of interactions that make me think deeply on my walk to and from school. these girls are from mozambique and angola and madagascar, so beautiful and refined, with heads full of thick hair done up in old-fashioned hairstyles—plaits and twists and chignons—that remind me of my grandmother's generation. these girls wear pleated dresses & blouses with rounded collars & immaculate button-down sweaters. these girls fold their hands in their laps and cross their legs at the ankles, and their stockings are crisp-white. elegant children are amazing to behold. sometimes i watch these little girls move with such grace through this foreign environment—none of them have been in america long—and i see myself as i might have been, if my ancestors hadn't been stolen, if i hadn't grown up believing that being fat and black and nappy-headed and female was the worst lot one could be born with in life, but instead, moved through the world like i was the queen of sheba and the most beautiful thing.
there is one little girl who consistently busts my chops. i'm with her for reading, but i also move to a lot of different classes, so sometimes i'm late (& let's keep it real, i'm late anyhow, ‘cus that's how it be). the first time i walk into her classroom, her main teacher, who looks like a distressed carol burnett, is trying to manage children headed to their language classes, so there's a bit of confusion and book-finding and losing and teachers popping in to collect students. this girl doesn't have a language class, but we're together for her to practice her english. the teacher points her out to me. she's sitting alone at her desk, and when i approach her, she looks me up and down and greets me by saying, i was going to be cross with you for being late, but you have a headtie. people with headtie are always late. i almost want to curtsy and beg her pardon. instead, i pull up a kid-sized wooden chair and ask her to read to me. i usually start off with some small talk, but her energy doesn't invite that—she is definitely a little miss. she reads the beginner books on her desks flawlessly. her english is formal, british (with just a dash of something else), and better than mine. i really don't know why i'm here.
in a couple of days, i'm back in her class again. this week, i have appointments after school on monday and friday. monday, i wear a bright african dress, and, because i'm lazy, i throw it in the wash and wear it again for a meeting on friday. when i come in with the same dress a second time, the little miss looks at me and says, so you only have the one dress, eh?
a short while later, carol burnett is absent, and i'm with her class for the whole day. i have to administer a quiz, and when it's complete, i leave the papers facedown on the teacher's desk. at playtime, the little miss comes over to me and says sternly, won't you review the tests? i'm not your regular teacher, i say. she'll review them when she comes back. but i want to know what i need to improve, she says. you're a teacher and you should always review the tests. she stands in front of me, hands folded in front of her, and what can i say—she's right. here's a child who wants to learn. i don't mark her quiz, but we go over a few things she has questions about. at the end of class, she says, i don't like that you come late, and you always wear the same dress, but i think you are a fine teacher.
sometimes i'm with the little miss at the end of the day, and it's usually challenging. the children are on a rotating schedule of online and in-person classes that confuses everyone. i can tell when the youngest students are online in the next day or two, because they just don't want to leave the building. it takes more than an hour for us to clean up the class and grab coats and books. at the last minute, everyone needs the bathroom (again), everyone has to tell a friend one last secret, everyone needs to change their library books. i understand—isolation is hard. i exercise much patience, but the little miss is often at the end of her rope during these last-minute shenanigans. she sits at her desk in layers of outside clothing that include a velvet hoodie, a down vest, a puffy coat, a woolen hat, and gigantic mittens. when it gets to be too much, she stands up, removes her mittens, and claps her hands loudly. come, come, don't you people have homes? let's go! she stalks through the classroom, handing out stray books and pens and scarves, and the other students accept her help without complaint. when we line up, she's at the front right by my side. she gives me a little smile, and i smile back.
we're partners in this thing now.
the bronx: lyric
so i’m called to a class with l’il ole babies, and i'm feeling brand-new.
the babies aren’t talking or walking much yet, and so we have to rely on the oldest of human senses to figure things out: intuition. i take a liking right away to a butterball-yellow girlchile who makes her appearance that first morning in daddy's arms (& he isn't bad on the eyes, either, with all them shoulders) and is immediately passed from hand to hand, where she is fed, bounced on knees, and her adorable baby jumpsuits & matching shoes are examined and praised. the teachers say she's almost two and doesn't walk much or speak in a way that can be understood.
i watch her being fanned as she is fed applesauce, and i wanna crack up laughing because, here is a room full of adults serving her every need, and here she is, looking down on me from somebody's knee, and here i am, a whole grownass woman, sitting on the floor, and i'm really thinking she's the sharpest mind in the room.
the teachers are talking about hair & nails (whatever school i go to, there's always a hair & nails conversation, and it's always hours long, and since i don't have either, i play with the kids or clean up or look out the window or make mandalas with crayons or write poems on construction paper that i always forget). the baby—i keep calling her lyric in my mind, because she looks like an infant jada pinkett smith—slides down off the nearest lap and crawls over to me. i hold her hands and guide her to her feet, and she bounces. her legs are strong. so i get up and try to walk her around the room.
at first, she grips my hand tightly. her legs tremble, and she takes a step or two, then falls on her bottom. she starts to cry, and i say, stand up! in a light, happy voice. i help her up, and we walk slowly. the teachers say that she'll walk around the hall once, and i take her outside the room, where she immediately falls again and hollers. i help her up and point to some of the kid drawings on the wall. see the flowers? see the sun? what color is this? we make it around the hall twice.
after our stroll, me and lyric roll like peanut butter & jelly. whenever i see her crawling, i stand her up and take her hand, and she walks. soon enough, she doesn't need me. she pulls herself up by using the kiddie tables and chairs, or whatever is nearby, and grabs onto a toy stroller, a mini shopping cart, or whatever she can lean on to get her where she needs to go, and we all keep saying, how did she get over there?
in many urban schools in nyc, the children don't go out. it's one of the reasons i ran from so many teaching jobs. one school almost took me out—i'll write about it someday. i was trapped in a flourescent-lit room with a class of toddlers and one window during a beautiful spring season in brooklyn, and it was always a battle for me to take the kids outside. sometimes, when it got late and only a few kids were left, i would pull up our chairs by the window and hold up the smallest students so that we could look outside and feel a little breeze on our faces.
in the late afternoons, when lyric gets cranky—she's as little as the day is long—this is what i do. the huge windows aren't barred, but they don't open. so me and lyric watch the street down below: the buses rumbling along, the mamas pushing baby carriages, and everybody selling hats & masks & ices & everything. if i find just the right spot, the sun shines directly on our heads, and even though we're not outside, i imagine that we're in a greenhouse, ingesting all the nutrients we need through the glass. it's criminal to keep children inside all day in any season, especially summer—but we make it work. i talk to lyric so much. i say, bus! and car! i sound out the words so she can shout with me, b-b-bus! she learns quickly and shouts out colors in her own way: bed! (red!)…bellow! (yellow!)…bluuuuuue!…her favorite, and she says it very well. it amazes me that the teachers say she doesn't talk—i understand her.
a day before my time with lyric is over, we sit on the carpet, and i read her some books. she doesn't really have the attention span for it, but she looks at the pages briefly. we pick up a book about a spider, and she starts singing, itsy bitsy spiiider! it's garbled, but i hear her. we sing that song over and over, and the teachers watch, astounded. we didn't know she could sing, they say, and when she is picked up in the afternoon, they tell mr. daddy with the arms that she sings, and he holds her close, says, i know. itsy bitsy spider is her favorite song.
sometimes i'm sad when i leave the kids, but on my last day with lyric, i'm happy. she comes in, carried by daddy arms in a striped sundress with a matching bow, and we all fall to pieces over her, of course. and after her applesauce, she's off laps all day and still crawling some, but also toddling around the class, holding someone's hand or steadying herself on something and walking in her shaky way. she's singing, she's shouting her colors—bed! blue!—when there's no bed & blue in sight. she's talking and walking in her own way, and she has daddy arms who sings with her at home, and i know she'll be just fine.
it's so interesting, the limits that other folks sometimes place on us. the first thing i was told about lyric was what she wasn't able to do. but it seems to me that she was able to do everything—she just needed a space for her abilities to unfold.
somewhere in that, there's a lesson.
brooklyn: who’s the boss
i been rocking in asian schools recently, and i have trouble getting some of the girls to communicate.
when handing out snacks, i might overlook a girl, and, instead of coming to me, she'll cry...or allow a boy to take her toy away or push her out of line. one little girl never even raises her head to look at me when she whispers.
so i decide to mess with her a bit.
every day, a child is put in charge of class as the helper. the first time i pick her, she looks terrified and says no. we spend a few days together, and whenever she whispers to me, i say, i can't hear you! and she speaks a tiny bit louder. then, i purposely don’t give her an apple or something and don’t even look at her, so that she has to say, i need...
after a while, i ask her to be the class helper again, and she says, yes, very softly, but with a smile. the kids don’t respect her at all. they talk over her and push her out of the way. i tell her, you're in charge. call their names. tell them to listen. they have to respect you. one boy keeps pushing her, and i remind her to say, stop—i'm in charge!
finally, the kids start to listen. they look at her when she speaks, and the boy stops pushing her. before, she spent the day holding my hand; now, when i reach for her during playtime, she says, no hand! instead of hiding in a corner, she asks me to help her into the fireman jacket & hat.
i ask her to strike a pose, and this is what she does…
Courtesy Radhiyah Ayobami
the bronx: nightmares & blessings
i’m called to a school in the bronx that’s almost 100% dominican.
i don’t know that at first—in fact, i think it’s a fairly mixed school, because i see far more light hair & eyes than i usually see this deep in nyc, and no africans at all, which has been unusual in my experience. i learn that the children are dominican because one of the teachers tells me. most of the regular staff don’t speak much to substitutes, and this is especially true in multilingual schools. but this woman sidles up to me with frowzy brown hair, a shy smile, a lunchroom cup of apple juice, and warm quesadilla, and says, i have an aunt that looks like you, and i say, dominican? and we laugh. i got called to this school last-minute, and i’m happy about the meal, too, because it becomes my only nourishment throughout the day.
i have worked with many spanish-speaking students—especially in california—but dominicans have consistently been the folks who let me know that we share branches of the same tree. as a black american, i can’t speak to the energies of island folks—growing up in nyc, you always hear about tropical beef—puerto ricans don’t like dominicans, dominicans don’t like haitians, haitians don’t like jamaicans—i can’t testify to any of it because i’m outside of the cultural loop, and i just enjoy all of those folks (& the food). i once taught an adult class of dominican students so rowdy that the administration had to stop in and ask us to calm down (repeatedly), but we had a ball, and i think of them often and wish them well.
these manmade borders and designations have a way of settling in the psyche and creating separation and animosity in a way that isn’t natural to us as human beings. i often wonder, for example, if there were no border between haiti and the dominican republic, how would that relationship be? i’m not a historian, a scholar, or someone who has enough information or experience to answer that question. of course, race & class politics will be present, because, to paraphrase octvaia butler loosely, humans love hierarchies and will always create them. so my wondering is more about whether there is a way to acknowledge the hierarchies as different but not lesser. but that’s a thesis question, and that’s not what this is. i’m often so busy working with people that i don’t have time to be existential, although i might make a good philosopher.
so the dominican teacher with the african aunt gives me the rundown of how the school works and what i need to know, and she’s pretty much the only adult with whom i have significant interaction the whole day, and i’m grateful for her way of saying, welcome.
i bounce around to a lot of different classes where students and teachers are confused and—it has to be said—depressed over social distancing & convoluted technology. at one point, we can’t connect to any websites, and i have to let the kids work in small groups, masks on, and draw, which they enjoy immensely. the children are thoughtful souls who try to make the best of a complex situation, and they don’t take advantage of the fact that i’m a substitute at all. they continually guide me through the day, saying, we sign on like this. now we do this—but sometimes it doesn’t work. can i help? their kindness is astounding.
Courtesy Radhiyah Ayobami
once, i walk into a class of around eight & nine year olds. as far as i can see, i’m the only black person in the school in my headwrap & long clothes. sometimes i expect the children to stare, particularly in a school or area where they may not see a lot of folks who look like me. but as i come into the room, the children, boys & girls, say one after the other, oh, you’re beautiful, are you our teacher? so pretty. i like you!
i haven’t felt a wave of appreciation like that in a long time. as a black woman who has been plus-sized most of my life, i’m used to negative reactions to my appearance, i’m used to being ignored. but these light-eyed, light-haired children brighten up when they see me, and i stand still in the class for a full minute and acknowledge that. it feels like love. i wish every brown round girl could walk into a room and know what it is to feel immediate & genuine appreciation for showing up in the world just as she is—wonderfully & fearfully made.
a little girl attaches herself to me during that class. she looks like someone from one of the ancient tribes of central or south america, with her deep brown skin, oval eyes & jet-black hair. i don’t see any other child who looks like her. she studies me, touches my tattoos, and says, i think i’m gonna get a nose ring & these marks when i grow up because they look good on brown skin. so i reply, i think you’ll look beautiful however you decide to adorn yourself. (i use ‘adorn’ on purpose because i want to introduce her to that concept. we look it up together on the ipad, and she loves it.)
the day is full of class after class, and i don’t get a break. i rush into my last class late, tired & salty. i feel overwhelmed. i help the children set up for their online lessons, which is complicated and time-consuming, as usual. an adult is on the screen blathering away, and half the kids can’t even get an internet connection. but it’s the end of the day, and if things fall to pieces, they’ll right themselves again tomorrow. the children have been fed, had some outdoor time, and they are all smiles. there are bigger problems in the world than bad internet—there are no worries here. a teacher passes by and shares some educational game sites with me, and i keep the kids occupied as best i can. when i come around to a boy in the back, he says casually—as if we’d been in conversation and were interrupted—black lives really do matter, you know. he has deep black eyes and the softest hair. i respond, yes, they do. as teachers just passing by, subs are often advised not to get into personal or political matters with students—it can be an emotional weight that’s too heavy to bear. but i can’t help myself. these children are also around eight or nine, and i ask him, what made you say that to me? and he says, i wanted you to know. then right afterwards, he says, i have nightmares, you know. the world scares me. my mom prays for me & sometimes they stop. i say, of course they do—mama’s prayers stop anything. we smile, and i put him on a website, but the fear in his eyes sits with me. i circulate around the room but keep looking at him, and sometimes i catch him looking at me.
when the class is almost over, i go back to him and say, do you like to read? he says, yes! and the boy next to him pipes up, he’s the bestest reader & the bestest student in this class! i say, look, when it’s time to go to bed, pick a book that you love. you can read it to yourself or maybe someone in your house can read to you. that will give you good dreams. then, i put my hands on top of his head—his hair is even softer than it looks—and i say, you’re gonna rest easy tonight & every other night. you’ll have sweet dreams and wake up smiling. the world is a safe place for you, and you’re here to have a lot of fun. i take my hands off his head and look into his face. some of the fear in his eyes is gone, and he says, i’m gonna ask my mom to pick a book tonight, and i say, good!
and then my day is over. and because i have been walking ridiculous amounts of miles—from harlem to the bronx and back—i do that again, walk along the winding roads of huge ancient rocks & trees that lead me back into harlem, where the streets are named after jazz kings. i buy my favorite treat—a coconut ice from a man with a cart—and listen to the sirens and the traffic, the rap & the merengue blaring from cars and house windows, too, and i think of children & islands, and of all these people here in this city together and of all people in all cities together.
and i wonder.
