What’s your name again?

Here, I am Madam. Or, I am Foreigner. I am a label or a title that defines my position in this country. They tell me it’s respectful to call my director “Director” and my vice principal “Vice principal.”

Which is how, as I am started to fill out my close-of-service paperwork (!) and I have to list the names of my neighbors and friends, I find that all my neighbors and friends are named things like “Driver,” “Mama” and “Hairdresser.” I realize that I don’t know anyone’s name. I realize, that like the kids that only know how to call my by my skin color, I have allowed myself to define other people by what they can do for me: Tailor, carpenter, rice and beans lady.

As I am working on filling out these forms, my neighbor pops out of her house.

“Hey, Dressmaker,” I yell at her through my window. “What’s your first name?”