AN SOS ONE NIGHT

by Géraldine Gaboyard—Joinville, France

Last week I had dinner with a friend I've known since elementary school. She had just come back from a weekend in London, and was telling me all about the trips she wanted to take.

I was glad to hear her talk this way because her life hadn't always been so happy, especially at the end of junior high school. Back then, she would often come over to see me when she was depressed. And I'd try to cheer her up.

She was the oldest in a family of six children, and she was in charge of all her brothers and sisters — from taking them to school to cooking for them. She also had to take care of the family's paperwork, because her parents were Cambodian immigrants and spoke very little French. Her schoolwork always had to come last. On top of all this, her father beat her, her boyfriend had just left her, and she had serious problems with neighborhood gangs.

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