Michelle Ray

When we arrived at the rural Tanzanian school, I thought I knew what we were there to do. My students, privileged teenagers from Dubai, would work at a local school and return home with stories of making a difference. But time suspended, and something else occurred; the real education was about to begin, and I wasn't going to be the teacher.

The school was a collection of small buildings scattered around a dusty playground. Children streamed out of the classrooms into the courtyard, swirling around in a tidal wave of energy. "Jambo," they shouted, their voices bright with excitement. They sang, clapped, and jumped, eager to meet our group, who hesitated.  But then sheer joy swept them into the dance. Music crackled from grainy speakers as they traded steps, laughter spilling into the dusty air.

The students didn't seem to notice when the music died out, and the teacher corralled all of us into a bare classroom with dirty walls and a chalkboard. I could sense the mood shift as the students realized our purpose and the amount of work ahead of them. After introductions, we began brainstorming designs for our instructional murals, which included numbers, letters, and maps.

I supervised a group working on clocks. Ali, the artist in our group, naturally took charge and spent the first afternoon sketching outlines for others to fill in with paint. But some kids wanted to draw their own, and one boy stood near his clock, face scrunched in distress. I looked closer at his clock; the numbers were in reverse order, scattered, and unreadable.

Ali crouched beside him. "You know, this reminds me of an artist we studied at school," he said. "Salvador Dalí. He painted clocks that melted, like time was bending."

The boy tilted his head and looked again, his frown softened.

Ali continued. "Sometimes, time feels like that, right? It speeds up when you're happy. Slows down when you're waiting. Maybe your clock is special. It shows how time moves in different ways."

The boy smiled at Ali and grabbed his brush to finish his time-bending clock.

I've been a teacher for years, but I've never seen a lesson land more perfectly.

We spent the next few days painting, teaching, and learning. By the final afternoon, the classroom walls glimmered with bright colors, letters, and shapes. We posed for our photo, proud of our work, but I was more proud of my students, whom I had underestimated. These kids who spent their days in malls and had nannies pack their school bags were now laughing and chatting with the locals—I could see a subtle change in them.

Maybe that was the real magic of this place, not Kilimanjaro or the wild landscapes, but the way time itself seemed to shift, bending just enough to let us step outside of ourselves and see everything, even each other, a little more clearly.