When I first opened the door of Language&Partner I was only seven years old. I walked long stairs into a building above our local pizza place into a hallway, as I later found out, always smelling after popcorn. With me taking a step into the classroom began a journey that is still, after 13 years, a huge part of my life. I met a lot of people; some are sadly already forgotten, and some are now my dearest friends.
Actually, I have a confession to make. You might have began to think that my first interaction with Language&Partner was when I was seven years old. Which is quite a while itself. All the talk about popcorn and people i have met. I realise I am to blame, for leading you the wrong way. The thing is, it wouldn’t be entirely true. To see where it all began, we have to go a little bit further back in time.
Around the year 2007 my mum took me to a shopping center near our house. At the very top was a bookstore full of people. A circle of children with their parents was formed around a single chair on which was sitting a woman, at the time unknown to me. I watched her, tried to understand words she was saying, in a language I didn't completely understand. None of us really did. And yet we sat, and we listened. She was reading a book which to this day proudly sits on my shelf. But even if that wasn’t the case, and I wouldn’t have seen the books ever since, I would still remember every single story that woman told.
The first one was a story about three goats trying to cross a bridge. Under that bridge lived a troll. When the troll tried to eat them, each of the goats told him to eat the other one. At the end, they all successfully crossed the bridge to eat the grass on the other side. Never sacrifice yourself for others. That was the main wisdom I took from the story. I promise I have undergone some self-development since then.
That, dear readers, is when I was introduced to Language&Partner. Even though none of us was aware of it at the time. The woman sitting on the chair, reading for curious kids, was Tatiana. Reading us our first English stories with the same enthusiasm with which she now gives us poems and the world’s most impactful literature to read. It may have started with selfish goats, but it ends with so much more. We helped Mary Shelly build Frankenstein, fought injustice with Margaret Atwood and also felt what it is like to be looked down on simply because of your gender with Elizabeth Zott. If I'm writing my own book, for all of us, this is the last page. There is only one thing needed to be said at this very end. We shall never forget Jane Eyre.