In November, for the first time in his life, ETA Alex Bue held a four-day-old baby who had been named after him. Alexa’s mother is Bu Le Ani, who works at SMAN 11 Padang as a maid and in the evening conscripts her three assiduous children to the task of sweeping floors. In the morning, Bu Le Ani makes Alex coffee, a responsibility with which he is yet to be entrusted.

Alex and six other teachers visited on November 23, after eating some fried things for lunch. Quietly they took of their shoes and stepped into the hushed preserve of Bu Le Ani’s home. She emerged from behind a curtain with a swaddled baby. The teachers asked, using one of those incongruously imported English words, if she was “serius” and had indeed named the child Alexa. Serius. Everyone held Alexa, watching as her awareness of the outside world flickered on and off, her eyes opened and closed.

Alex Bue is currently teaching at SMAN 11 Padang, West Sumatra