THURSDAY, JANUARY 25

I finally got a letter from Thérèse. She had not yet received mine but had gotten my address from Tante Rose so she could write to me. She promised to write again but did not put a return address.

Thérèse’s mother, like many poor mothers in the provinces, has decided to send her to live with a family of a man her mother sometimes sells vetiver to in the market in Léogâne. The man’s family lives in the capital and he has taken Thérèse to work at his house, promising to send her to a better school than Madame Auguste’s.

This doesn’t sound good. Most girls who end up in this kind of arrangement never go to school. They work from morning to night, waiting on the families, cooking and cleaning, and the families rarely spend money on their education.

Tante Rose was involved in this same kind of arrangement when she was my age. My grandparents—Tante Rose and Papa’s parents, the ones she had lit the candle for on All Saints’ Day—had sent her to the capital to work for a family of a coffee speculator her mother had met in the market in Léogâne. The coffee speculator had promised to send Tante Rose to school in exchange for Tante Rose’s working at her house, but she never did.

She and her husband threw Tante Rose out of their house when their son, who was ten years older than Tante Rose, attacked Tante Rose and she complained to them.

Tante Rose was too ashamed to return home, so she went to an orphanage and offered her services there. She worked for school fees and that’s how she got her education.

Tante Rose was very lucky. Perhaps Thérèse will be, too. But for every story like Tante Rose’s, there are thousands of girls who end up alone in the city with nothing.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26

I am starting to understand my lessons a lot better now. I even got an 82 percent on an English spelling test. I had memorized those words as though they were pictures and reproduced them on the page exactly the way I saw them in my head.

Immacula, Faidherbe, and I now study together during our lunch hour and this helps me a lot. I write a list of questions, and whatever I don’t understand, they explain to me.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27

Manman brought home some food from work. She seems to like her job a lot, most of all because she doesn’t have to cook at home in the evenings anymore. Most of what we eat now is leftover food from the restaurant. It feels strange to be sharing Manman’s cooking with so many people. Those people are lucky to have Manman cook for them.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28

Moy practiced some of his English on me today.

“How are you, Celiane Espérance?” he asked.

I said, “I am fine, thank you.”

We giggled through the whole thing.