Marta doesn’t know why we’re here. All she knows is that her mother brings her to my house, leaves her with me, and goes into the classroom.
I speak Spanish to her, painfully slow to make sure she understands me.
“Marta,” I tell her. “Don’t go in there.” She reaches for the doorknob.
“Da-da!” she pleads.
“No,” I say. “You cannot go in there. They are working,”
She runs up to me. “Da-da, da-da!” she says.
“What?” I ask. “What is da-da?”
“Da-da,” she whispers.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
She shakes her head.
“Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head.
“Tired?”
She shakes her head again.
“Want some water?”
“Da-da, da-da!”
Then it clicks: to Marta, saying da-da is the same as saying agua, or water.
I fill a plastic glass full.
“Marta,” I say, “Say thank you,”
She stares at me with her big brown eyes. She hands me back the water.
“Thank you,” I model again. “Just say it,”
“Da-da,” she says, smiling. “Da-da,”
We have our little conversations. She tugs on my arm and I ask her what it is she needs. I go though the list until she starts nodding and tugging harder.
She doesn’t speak any English. She barely speaks to me even in Spanish.
She’s only three years old, yet I can’t seem to give her want she needs.
It’s hard.
But I’m learning to love Marta.