Who Are the Students?

Esther's group of elementary level students in classroom

We teach lovely young women in modern jeans

Scarved  in pastels and browns

Alongside those whose hair flow freely

beside nuns in black habits but open faces

And sharp young men who look like they

could be in high school anywhere in the U.S.,

but they are in private classes all over Port Said

this year before entering public schools again next year.

We teach managers, accountants, and logisticians

 who work in companies like CGM,

that keep the ships moving through the canal

to and from ports all over the globe.

One is a cardiologist longing to join family

in Canada, and a filmmaker/artist,

Trying to raise her family here.

Another, holding the second rank

in city government, hopes with

better English, to become the first.

A few are bankers and customer service reps

for phone companies or medical supplies,

or just lost jobs or abandoned the insupportable.

Others are teachers or students from

Port Said University across the canal.

They major in music, or swimming, or logistics,

and are trying to pass their English exams for the

jobs they know will be difficult to find here.

A few are just released from the army,

And some are waiting to enter, hoping for

that one year soldier’s designation, rather

than an officer’s three-year role. After all,

these are not safe times for young men to serve.

All are pilgrims of hope, and I am their student.