The Somali Tutoring Center
"She runs the after-school tutoring center in Cedar-Riverside—a thick ebony divorced teacher who wants every Somali kid to succeed. When he volunteers to help, she shows him her teaching methods. Some lessons happen after the students leave."
The Cedar Academy runs from 3 PM to 7 PM.
After-school tutoring for Somali kids whose parents work double shifts. Math, English, homework help, college prep. All free. All on Ifrah's dime.
I come to volunteer.
"You teach?"
"I'm an engineer. I can do math."
"Mashallah." She looks me over. Fifty-three years old. Two hundred and forty pounds. Ebony skin, sharp eyes, the posture of someone who commands classrooms. "Can you handle teenagers?"
"I was one once."
"Good enough. You start Monday."
The kids are chaos.
Thirty of them, ages 12 to 17, all energy and attitude. Ifrah moves through them with effortless authority.
"Aammus—quiet!" She claps her hands. "Books open. Work now. Phones away."
They obey. Immediately.
I've never seen anything like it.
"How do you do that?"
"Fear and love." She smiles. "They know I'll call their mothers. They also know I'd die for them."
"That's... intense."
"That's teaching." She hands me a stack of worksheets. "Now. Table four needs help with algebra."
I volunteer every weekday.
Ifrah and I fall into a rhythm—she handles the motivation, I handle the math. The kids start improving. The parents start thanking us.
"You're good at this," she says one night, after the last student leaves.
"I had a good teacher."
"Ilaahay." She shakes her head. "I've been doing this for fifteen years. After my divorce, I needed something to pour myself into."
"What happened with your husband?"
"He didn't believe in educating girls." She starts straightening desks. "I educated girls anyway. He left."
"His loss."
"The girls' gain." She looks at me. "And maybe... mine too."
We start staying later.
Talking after the students leave. About education, about Somalia, about the dreams we have for these kids.
"Why did you really come here?" she asks one night.
"To help."
"That's what you do. Why did you start?"
I'm quiet for a long moment.
"My mother couldn't read. She came from Somalia with nothing. She died never knowing what her own name looked like written down."
"And you want to make sure no one else's mother suffers that."
"I want to make sure no one else's child suffers that."
She reaches across the desk.
Takes my hand.
"I haven't been touched in ten years."
We're in her office now. The center is dark, locked.
"Ten years of teaching other people's children. No children of my own. No one to come home to."
"Ifrah—"
"I know it's unprofessional." She stands. "I know you're a volunteer. But I've watched you with those kids. The way you care. The way you see them."
"I see you too."
"Then show me."
She undresses in the dim light of her office.
Her body is powerful—thick arms from years of writing on blackboards, wide hips from standing all day, breasts heavy and full.
"This is what ten years of loneliness looks like," she says.
"This is what beauty looks like."
I pull her close.
I worship the teacher.
My mouth learns her body like a new subject—every curve, every response. She gasps as I kiss her breasts.
"The desk—" She pulls me toward her teacher's desk. "Here—"
She sits on the edge.
I kneel between her thick thighs.
"ILAAHAY!"
She screams as my tongue finds her. Her hands grip my hair.
"Ten years—" She's shaking. "Ten years of nothing—"
I lick her until she comes twice. Three times.
"Inside me—" She's pulling at my clothes. "Ku soo gal—"
I strip. She watches with hungry eyes.
"Subhanallah—" Her hand wraps around me. "You're—"
"Yours. Tonight. I'm yours."
I lay her back on the desk.
I push inside the teacher.
She cries out—ten years of need filling.
"So good—" Her legs wrap around me. "Dhakhso—teach me what I've been missing—"
I pound her on her own desk.
The desk shakes. Papers scatter. She comes again and again.
"Ku shub—" She's begging. "Fill me—please—"
I explode inside her.
We lie tangled among scattered homework.
"Tomorrow the kids come back," she murmurs.
"And I'll be here."
"For tutoring?"
"For everything." I kiss her. "For you."
One Year Later
The Cedar Academy is thriving.
Test scores are up. College acceptances are up. The community calls it a miracle.
They don't know about the other miracles—the ones that happen after hours, on Ifrah's desk, when the students have gone home.
"Macaan," she moans. "My sweet volunteer."
The teacher who changed lives.
The woman who changed mine.
Our secret curriculum.