directions. We moved a lot in those days as my father searched for work and I went to three diffrent schools in 1 year. I continued to struggled with English. Then, after first grade ended, my family went back to Afghanistan for the summer. I fell in love with Logar, but…

— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022

But I'd completely forgotten all the English I'd learned in school! I remember on the morning of my first day in 2nd grade, I could only recall 10 letters from the alaphabet. I was was way behind and on track to be left back. But then I had the fortune of meeting Ms. Lung

— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022

Ms. Lung sat with me almost everysingle day after school, giving me extra lessons in reading and writing so I could catch up with the rest of the class. By the end of the year, I'd learned to read and write, and by third grade, I was winning awards for reading comprehension.

— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022

After that, my family moved a few times more and I lost track of Ms. Lung. For years afterward, all throughout highschool and college, I tried to find Ms. Lung, to thank her for everything she'd done for me. I searched google and social media. I called my old school and visited

— Jamil Jan Kochai (@JamilJanKochai) August 14, 2022

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

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