Yaw

Yaw is the sweetest little boy you'll ever meet. He never says a word. He is perfectly content to sit in my lap for the duration of my visit, though he never cries if I have to put him down. He is called Yaw because he came to the orphanage on Thursday and the people in charge weren't able to find out his name.
However, I think Yaw's story is the most tragic of all. When I first met Yaw, I did what I normally do with the children who might be able to talk. I ask them their name in every language I can (Twi, Ga, French, Russian, English) to see if they'll respond. Most don't - they've been too traumatized to talk. However, this little boy looked at me and said "Coco." That was his name, and it was so cute I forgot everything else. He never spoke again.
Then I got sick with something that wasn't malaria, though the doctors told me it was, and didn't go the orphanage for a week. When I got back, everyone was calling him Yaw. I decided I must have been thinking of another boy or something and began calling him Yaw as well. Then my last day there, someone told me he came from Togo, and my heart sank. The boy spoke French. Because I'd been sick and everything, I hadn't realized that he told his name to me when I asked him in French, a language no one else there spoke. He probably didn't talk because he didn't understand the language. I realized I was the only one who knew his real name.
I told some workers what had happened, but though they were sympathetic, they handled the situation as I expected they would. He was Yaw now - let's not confuse him further. And he has to learn the language. But imagine losing everything and everyone around you, going to a place where you don't understand anything, and no one even knows your name.
God knows his name.