As with everybody, there is always someone who has a special influence in your life. For me it’s Mr. Pouye.
            Mr. Boubacar Pouye is a high school teacher in Senegal . He is one of the best teachers, in physics and chemistry we have ever had. He’s an honest man, very kind and ready to help anyone who needs him.
            Mr. Pouye has had a strong influence on me since I met him. At first sight, he seemed a very nervous man to me, but he wasn’t the person I thought. He asked me what studies I intended to do after I graduated and I told him that I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. “There is hard work waiting for you and you must be prepared,” he said. He promised to help me but only if I really wanted. I said, “Of course, yes.” Since that moment he has become like a father to me.
            We started to work; he prepared me for my final exam, the Baccalaureate, which is the equivalent of the high school diploma in the United States . I worked harder and harder, which made me feel ready for everything that could happen next. Many times he has gone off on me because I wanted to give up, and I used to say at that moment, “This man wears me out.”
     Many times he has asked me to come see him in his office, because he wanted to talk to me. I knew he wanted to give me advice or maybe I did something wrong or bad.
     However, now I realize that he met me as a boy and he turned me into a man, and I’ll always thank him for everything.

A story about my granddaughter

by Vija Chen, New Haven Adult School

    My granddaughter is 17-months-old now. Her name is Isabella. She is lovely and is fond of movement. 
    Three weeks ago one of my daughter’s friends gave us a plastic slide.  I put the slide on the grass in our backyard. The slide’s height is two times Isabella’s height.  Isabella touched this big and newfangled plaything and was very curious. 
     I lifted Isabella up to the slide. When she sat on it well, I let go of her. She slid down quickly. She was in shock and cried the first time. After several times, she didn’t cry and began to be interested in the slide. 
    The slide has a steep ladder with four steps.  I taught Isabella how to climb up the slide before she slid down. After some time she could climb up the slide without my help and could slide down by herself.  She was very happy, and I was very glad that my granddaughter could climb up the slide without any help. 
     But an unexpected and unhappy incident happened after two weeks.  Last Saturday, our family went to a restaurant.  In this restaurant around every table stand some high chairs. Each chair has a high back with several horizontal sticks that look like a ladder. I put Isabella into a chair for children. Then Isabella’s parents, my wife and I sat around the table. We had a good dinner. After we finished eating, we put Isabella down on the ground.  Isabella was walking between our chairs.  We all stood up. When we were talking to the waiters, all of us forgot to care for Isabella.  Suddenly we heard a great thump and cry. I found Isabella lying under a chair’s back. She burst into tears, and her forehead was swelling. We understood what happened at once: Isabella climbed the chair’s back as a ladder. When she was climbing up the chair’s back, the chair fell down with Isabella. Now my granddaughter Isabella still has a bruise on her forehead.

VOCABULARY HELP
bruise - a discoloration of the skin made by a blow that does not break the surface of the skin, a contusion
burst - to break open suddenly
forehead - the part of the face above the eyebrows 
ladder - a piece of equipment used for climbing 
newfangled - newly made, technologically up-to-date (often used humorously of ideas or equipment)
slid - past tense of ‘slide’, to go downward
slide - on a children’s playground, a wooden or metal slope where one climbs up a ladder to the top, sits and moves down quickly
steep - at an angle at which something or someone could easily fall
swelling - enlarging or expanding in size 
thump  - a thud, a heavy sound

 *Definitions from The Newbury House Dictionary of American English 4th edition, by Rideout. © 2004 Monroe Allen Publishers.  Reprinted with one-time permission of Heinle & Heinle a division of Thomson Learning. FAX 800 730-2215.

May 2006 - Our readers write
From San Gabriel CBET students  

(Editor’s note: We received stories from the following students in Maria T. Jarak’s CBET class at San Gabriel High School, Alhambra Unified School District, San Gabriel, California: Sunny Lee, Irene Monjares, Hector Villagra, and Lily Wang. Maria writes, "My students are from Taiwan, China, Argentina, Mexico, and Japan.")

April 2006 - Our readers write

My name is Beatriz Valdivia. I’m from Mexico from a little town close to Guadalajara called La Huerta, Jalisco. My parents passed away when I was three years old. My oldest sister took care of me. At the age of six, I started to work hard, helping my sister to clean the house. My oldest brothers came to the USA and then brought me here to live with them. I came here with a dream: I could learn English, study for a short career, get a good job and have my own house. I had to work and help my brothers at home. Two years later I got married. My husband didn’t let me go to school, or go to work. We were living in an apartment, and we had four children. We were very poor, but he never let me work. After 12 years of marriage, we had differences and got a divorce. He went to Mexico and got married there but he never gave me child support. After this I went to live with a single brother. He was renting a little house, but he didn’t let me pay any bills.

I offered to help by doing the grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning the house. Every day I had to take my children to school, and go to work cleaning houses. I used to clean one or two houses a day, run to pick up my children at school, and go home to cook and clean the house. I remember that sometimes I was very tired, but I had to take care of my children. The time passed and four years later, I had saved some money. Finally I could buy my house. In the same year, I got my license for cosmetology and another license as a child care worker. I’m continuing to learn English because I think it’s very important for everything you want to do. My children have a difficult life too. They have worked since they were in high school. Now they’re in college and they are still working and studying. They’re 25, 23, 19 and 15 years old. They’re good children, and I’m proud of them. Now we live happily in our house. I know it’s a big responsibility, but one of the best things is that one of my dreams came true.

March 2006 - Our readers write

When I was sixteen years old, I told my brother Tino about my wish to be a musician. I wanted to learn how to play music. I longed for a set of drums and I dreamed about the day I would join a band and travel the world.

On my sixteenth birthday, my entire family was celebrating my special day. Tino walked up to me and said, "Jose, now you can begin to see your dream come true. I was very excited. The gift for my birthday was a guitar. But in the next months I found I couldn’t play. I found a solution. I had a friend who had drums he didn’t know how to play. So here I was with my guitar looking for somebody to trade with. We traded and we played in a group for one year. But we never came to be real good players. So I moved and looked for a real job.

February 2006 - Our readers write

Memory of the Spring Festival
by Huilian Wang-Miller,  Martinez Adult Education

(Editor’s note: We received the following letter from Huilian Wang-Miller: "I received the latest Easy English Times from you before New Year’s Day. Thank you very much. I’m an ESL student. I’m taking English classes at Martinez Adult Education and the Benicia Library. The year of the Dog (the Lunar Near Year) brings back memories of childhood to me. So I composed an essay to share with you and other ESL students.Happy New Year!")

In my memory, the Spring Festival was the liveliest and the most popular festival in China. It was held during the early days of the 12th lunar month. The streets of the city were filled with an air of festivity. The children were bouncing and vivacious and sang a children’s welcome to the festival. The adults were busy purchasing the necessities for celebrating the Spring Festival. My parents bought fish, meat, fruits, vegetables and decorations. My father was our family cook, because he was good at cooking. My mother was busier than usual. She made new shoes and new clothes for us after work. Sometimes, I saw her light was still on at midnight. Before the festival, cleaning house, washing all the clothes and bedclothes were my sister’s jobs. As for me, I worked as an assistant. I peeled and washed vegetables, mopped the floor, wiped chairs and tables, and looked after my little sister. We were all busy until the Spring Festival Eve.

I remember the day of the Spring Festival Eve was one of the most important days. On that day, we did the last work for welcoming the New Year. We decorated our clean house and prepared the most luxurious dinner in a year. We put the colorful paper-flowers my sister and I had made into a vase. We pasted Spring Festival pictures and verses on the front door. The picture usually was a plump boy, with chubby cheeks, and pudgy fingers, wearing a traditional Du-dou (a style of traditional children’s clothing). He was riding on a big plump fish. It meant hope for an abundant year. The verses were written with Chinese calligraphy, black characters on red paper. The content was from our wishes, for a bright future and good luck in the New Year.

I don’t know about other families, but when I was a child, we had a ceremony before the New Year’s Eve dinner. My mother took out some portraits and pictures of our ancestors and put them on the "Tiao-ji" (a long narrow, high table). My father put some dishes on a big square table. My parents lit three sticks of incense and inserted them in an incense burner. Then, we kowtowed to our ancestors. (To kowtow was to make three deep bows). After the ceremony of offering sacrifices to our ancestors, we sat down and started eating the great dinner together.

VOCABULARY HELP*
bouncing - moving up and down
chubby - plump
incense - a substance that releases a pleasant smell when burned
looked after - took care of
luxurious - characterized by luxury, great comfort at great expense
pasted - stuck things together with paste
peeled - took the skin off of a piece of fruit or vegetable
plump - round in shape, chubby or full-figured
portraits - paintings, photographs or other pictures of a person
pudgy - chubby, fat
vivacious - lively, cheerful
wiped - rubbed away (unwanted dirt, water, tears, etc.)

*Definitions from The Newbury House Dictionary of American English 4th edition, by Rideout. © 2004 Monroe Allen Publishers. Reprinted with one-time permission of Heinle & Heinle a division of Thomson Learning. FAX 800 730-2215.

January 2006 - Our readers write