What a privilege it is for me to join the staff at David Harrison, as an ESOL para.  My childhood was spent in Congo (Zaire), Africa.  From age 1 to 5 I lived in a rural area where I learned to speak English and Urund (the local language) simultaneously.  I had first grade in America, then returned to Congo where I started Belgian school in second grade without knowing a word of French, and also began learning Swahili, which was spoken in the new area we moved to.  Because of the political situation, in fourth grade I began attending a British boarding school in the neighboring country, Zambia. The fifth language I studied was Latin starting in 7th grade, but hand scrawled in the front of most of our textbooks was “Latin is a language as dead as can be, first it killed the Romans and now it’s killing me”.  You can imagine my success with Latin. When I was 16 I returned to the States to finish high school, then university where I earned a B.S. in secondary education with an emphasis in Family and Consumer Science.  After teaching for three years I stayed home to raise our three daughters and a son, who is completing his first year as a US Marine.  In my spare time I enjoy hanging out with our two grandchildren, Hannah and Timothy, my international friends, reading, walking, helping with Good News clubs.  Because of my background, I love working with these young internationals at Harrison, helping them improve their English.