Waiting

I’m sitting in an echoey room, tiled and empty but for a series of utilitarian desks and chairs. The cacophony of high-pitched voices ebbs and flows as girls go in and out of the room, deciding whether to stay for English class or not.

The centre, set just off the road along from the souk, is more modern and well-maintained than I expected. Nevertheless, it is functional rather than homely and I wonder at how it feels for this to be the only home you know, for your bedroom to be shared with a dozen other girls, for there to be no mother or father figure to whom you can turn for comfort, or affirmation, or instruction.

We sit down and are joined by a group of girls whose number fluctuates throughout our 90 minutes together. Already I have given and received more bisous than I can count with these girls, hungry as they are for love and affection. And how could I not feel affection for them? Beautiful olive-skinned faces with eyes that range from dark brown to startling green, and all of them around the ages of my own two daughters.

The English class is more like a cross between a pub quiz and a karaoke night. Answers are shouted, everyone joining in with actions as instructed by the video we’re watching. And then we sing the theme tune from the Frozen movie - like, 15 times. The girls all seem pretty familiar with the English teacher and they have the lesson format down pat. I look around the circle, noticing the ones that are pensive and tentative, the ones that are combative; all of them craving attention, wanting to be special.

One girl stands quietly at the back. She’s older than most and there is a sadness about her eyes that draws my attention. Repeatedly she moves to the window and looks outside, returning to the group but remaining self-contained and separate. What’s going on with her, I wonder, all sorts of scenarios running through my mind and none of them pleasant.

When I make enquiries later, it turns out that at 17 years old Salma (not her real name) will soon have to leave the girls’ centre. She has outgrown the system that has cared for her, but she doesn’t have anywhere to go and no means to support herself.

At just 16, my own daughter is a full year younger than Salma and already I am preoccupied with what it means to launch a young woman into independent adulthood. Keziah makes some pocket money through various babysitting gigs, but she is far from aware of what it means to work full-time. I worry about the qualifications she will get and the route she’ll take through higher education to meaningful work. She helps a bit around the house, folding laundry or preparing meals, cleaning the kitchen or walking the dogs. But I can’t imagine her being ready to live in her own place, to handle plumbing problems or neighbourhood security issues. And when she is finally living and working independently, a few years from now, she’ll have caring parents on the end of the phone, willing to jump in the car and turn up on her doorstep to clean up spilt milk, or fit shelves, or whatever parents do in those situations.

Salma, on the other hand, has no parental support. Putting aside any dreams she may have had for her life, she has to find a way to make the €40 each month she’ll need for a room in a shared apartment. And then she’ll need to feed herself, find a bit of money for clothes or a visit to the doctor’s. The fear and aloneness is etched in her face: where will she go, what will she do?

Salma is just one of many, many girls orphaned or abandoned, married and then returned, on the cusp of adulthood and yet devoid of hope for the years that should be the most fruitful and fulfilling. The look in her eyes remains with me, and the way she clung to my arm as I said goodbye.

What would it mean in this context for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven? For Salma, looking out of the window there by the souk - what would Good News be for her? Because if the beauty, order and abundance of God’s Kingdom cannot be made available to her in her very real life, then what good is it to tell people that the Kingdom is coming?

This Advent we remember again that we are in a state of waiting. Waiting for the Redeemer to be made known, waiting for our tears to be wiped away. As we light candles and read aloud familiar scriptures, we rehearse again the story we are part of. We remind ourselves that God took on flesh and lived like one of us, like Salma.

As the Psalmist wrote, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us—so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”