Neb. woman gives English lessons to neighbors

This is a wonderful story about a woman who is helping the people in her neighborhood learn English. Every neighborhood needs someone like her. DP

By CINDY LANGE-KUBICK, Lincoln Journal Star

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Can you spell neighborly?

Nadzeya Zakharchenia can't.

The Ukrainian woman in Carol Newsom's kitchen doesn't know that word. She probably can't pronounce it.

But every Tuesday morning she comes to this neighborly woman's house on the southwest edge of town to learn English.

She smiles. Takes out her homework. Sits in a sunny kitchen with plants and cats and a round table set up like a classroom.

When Carol moved here nearly five years ago, the only thing outside her back door was dirt.

Then, slowly, her street began filling with modest ranch houses like hers.

And Carol began to notice something.

The woman next door who couldn't understand her greetings and needed her daughter to translate.

And the young mother down the street who knew all of two English words. Hello. Goodbye. Nothing in between.

She noticed more and more new houses filling up with new Americans.

Carol is a 52-year-old woman who saw a need. She didn't call social services. Or write a letter to the editor. Or shake her head and shut her front door because her neighbors couldn't talk weather over the fence.

She did something.

Which is why Nadzeya is here. And Lyudmila Yenmakovich, the young mother who arrived before her, bearing chocolates and candles for her tutor.

In all, Carol gives weekly English lessons to 16 people in her neighborhood, mostly weekday mornings, but Saturdays, too, for people who work.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.