The Locksmith's Daughter

It has been a long time since I have written in my diary. I have not written in it since I was a little girl but, today was an intriguing day.

It was my first day working as a teacher. I had just finished my master's degree at the University of Michigan, and I thought I was going to be working in Michigan, when a friend of mine found me a job in Bullhead City, Arizona. I knew that I was going to miss the sweet spring and the cool winter, but I found an equilibrium in Bullhead that I did not have in Michigan. While the summers and winters in Michigan were sometimes cold and full of rain, Bullhead hardly ever got rain and was normally warm.

The new school was painted with neutral colors that made me feel at home with the earthy tones. The students, as far as I could tell, were very happy and enjoyed playing, except for one girl. I asked her what was wrong the first time that I saw this, and she responded by saying that everything was okay. Then, she ran off into the classroom. It spiked my interest, but I decided to give her a little while before I asked her again about her introverted behavior.

For a couple of months, I had noticed that little Elisa does not go out to recess, instead she seems to be equipped with some sort of an excuse to stay in the classroom, but my curiosity had increased, and I continue watching. I do not see her talk to any of the other girls in the class. She came to live in the United States from Mexico, and in the beginning, I attributed her doleful behavior to the change of languages. I understood that making new friends is sometimes not an easy task, but it had been a considerable amount of time. It seemed that abnormal for her to continue to be isolated, so I began to suspect that, behind this apparent shyness, she could be hiding a baneful problem, and I ventured to ask.

 After much effort, and with much suspicion on my part, I found out the reason for her isolation.

She told me she was an ugly girl, like a black fly in a glass of milk, extending her index finger of her right hand, to show me her skin, as dark as her eyes and her hair, when her classmates were like a rainbow in the sky. Her confession gave me a lot of pain, but I remembered a story, and I began to tell it.

It happened in Guatemala; there was a brown girl who was too poor to attend a private school. Her classmates were the children of wealthy parents and were like rainbows in the sky, only this girl was poor; her mom had to sell sweets to help her father with household income that would pay for their daughter  to go to a private school where they thought she would get a better education and better friends.

But while her parents were determined to provide a better world for this little girl, she was ashamed of her family. Her father was the village locksmith and her mother was a housewife. She could not talk about her weekends like her extroverted friends did. She did not have a house in the country that she could visit, a private beach that she could boast about, a nice park, or a store full of toys where she could buy what she wanted. She could not buy a doll house and could not have the latest Barbie, none of that. The girl could not participate in discussions with her typical classmates because their financial situation was different, and it made her feel very unhappy.

Her weekends were spent taking care of her smaller siblings and helping her mother with the household chores. She enjoyed a normal childhood; however, and her parents continued to wait for a different future. They wanted their little girl to reach being someone important like a doctor, a lawyer or an artist. So, as the years passed, it continued the same way, without any changes.

But one day, in the classroom, a rambunctious, curious child wanted to see what was on the other side of the shelf, so he put his head up to see what that was shining on the other side. The shelf hid a window, and the sun had gone through a crack, the child finally discovered that it was a ray of sunshine, but, while getting his head in was easy, trying to get it out was a different story. The teacher was very afraid and panicked because the child's countenance was beginning to change colors and the child cried a lot.

 All children in the class were scared because none of them knew what to do. Then, the little girl had a luminary idea. She ran out of the classroom and looked for her father, the locksmith of the people. He brought the necessary tools, and in a moment, the child's head became free of the shelf.

They congratulated the hero and the brown girl, who in a moment of despair know what to do and who to call.

It was on that day that the girl realized to herself that not even a lawyer, doctor, graduate, artist, scientist, paleontologist, architect, historian, or anthropologist could help as much as the locksmith did that day.

That day, the little girl learned, that no matter the skin color we have or the job we have we are all important.

When I finished telling the story, I found Elisa with a big smile on her face, the eyes of little Elisa were like a rainbow appearing in the sky. She hugged me, thanked me, and went out to play with her classmates. She understood the story, and I was grateful to be the daughter of locksmith, because today I unlocked another life.