Poor

There was a horrible smell in my classroom on Friday. I noticed it, the children noticed it, Mrs. B-- noticed it (and sprayed some air freshener.) It was E--. She smelled like a baby with a very dirty diaper, but without that clean-baby-head smell to mitigate it.

In first grade, there is little sweating, so body odor has not typically been a problem. The only smelling problems I have had have been bearable -- children wearing their school uniforms every day without their parents washing them for weeks or months at a time. The blue shirts fade to gray, the khaki pants spot to brown.

I took E-- aside when the rest of the children went to lunch. "Did you have an accident?" I asked her. She shook her head. I touched her skinny little arm. The skin, normally taut, had a drier than normal, gritty feeling. "When was the last time you had a bath?" I asked.

She shrugged. "My daddy's tub's been broke," she told me. "We didn't have no water."

I pulled her close. "It's okay," I told her. "Sometimes that happens and there's nothing you can do." In my head, I ran through possible ways I could bathe her and get her some clean uniform clothes that fit and a decent meal without it being terribly odd. For now, I'm sneaking extra stickers on her star chart to help her earn her trip with me as soon as possible. Maybe we'll go out to eat and have our hair done together. And shop for a new uniform.

In ways, the poverty is not as apparent as you would think it would be in a school where 100% of the students qualify for free lunch. Noone has much money, everyone wears the same thing and it's a little dirty. But most are washed and hair-braided and regular-sized. So it's the few who are not only poor, but actually impoverished that stand out.