The district office. But I kept hitting deadends. The main problem was that I didn't know Ms. Lung's first name! She'd always just been Ms. Lung to me. In my mid 20s, I'd pretty much given up on the search. I figured Ms. Lung had moved on to a new state, a new life. But a few…
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
Non classé
years earlier, after 99 Nights in Logar came out, somone reached out to me out of the blue on Facebook. It was Ms. Lung's husband! Apparently Allen Lung heard about an article I wrote for LitHub where I mentioned Ms. Lung. He asked me if I wanted to speak with her that night.
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
My family and I all gathered together for the call. My parents had been wanting to thank Ms. Lung for years as well. When I finally got the chance to hear Ms. Lung's voice, tears welled up in my eyes. I told her that everything I'd accomplished I owed to her, and that I thought
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
of her all the time and that I'd been searching for her for years. We all cried that night. Unfortunately, this was at the height of the pandemic, and we were still qurantining at the time. We promised to meet in the future. After that, my wife and I had a child, the Afghan
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
Government collapsed, my beloved grandmother died, I finished at Stanford, and I published The Haunting of Hajji Hotak. It was a hectic time and we lost touch. But then, last night, after my reading, Ms. Lung's husband, Allen, rushed up to me, introduced himself, and brought
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
me over to Ms. Lung, and seven year old me finally got to hug my 2nd grade teacher again. We chatted and smiled and cried a litte. I signed her book and tried to write on the page what I couldn't express with my voice. I took down their numbers and invited them for dinner.
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
My father always used to say in Pashto that every child is a rocket filled with fuel and all they need is a single spark to lift off into the sky. Ms. Lung, he said, was my spark. Throughout my life, I've been blessed to encounter a series of remarkable teachers that have
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
given me their time and consideration and knowledge, but everything really began with Ms. Lung. And I thought it was important that people hear her story, and that they know how much one teacher, in one year, can change a child's entire life.
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
Let me tell you a story. This is Susan Lung. She taught me to read and write in a single year when I was 7 years old. I've been looking for Susan, hoping to thank her in person, for almost twenty years. And then she surprised me at my reading last night. pic.twitter.com/7YW2EPx1CO
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
I came to the US at 1 and a half years old, but I grew up in a household that only spoke Pashto & Farsi, so when I started kindergarten, I didn't know a word of English. I don't think my teacher knew how to handle an ESL student. He used to punish me for not understanding his
— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022
