How I Lived then

Now that I have turned twenty-four and that I celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday the other day, I can not help reminiscing about my childhood days. Though still young, I feel that I am getting older day after day. I might well attribute this strange feeling to the remarkable changes I have undergone all these years. In reality, I am no longer the person I used to be fourteen years ago, nor was I then the person I am today. Completely different personalities, actually!

It was in 1994 when I entered school; I was seven then. The first thing I was amazed by when I first entered my class were the posters hung on the classroom wall. I would say that they sum up my past life and the one I am currently leading. I quite vividly remember some of the posters. Whenever my teacher asked us to write down the lesson, from time to time I cast some glances at the pictures in the posters. I so much appreciated them and beholded them with every awe.

The first one to the right was quite gloomy-looking. In it, there was a red bus with passengers inside and a new pupil outside holding a satchel on his back hurrying up and talking to the bus driver. At the time, I had no idea what a bus was for, nor did I know why the new pupil appeared to be in a rush. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed the scene. Like any of my fellows, I was a fair pupil. I raised my hand when the teacher asked us simple questions, but at other times I just kept staring at the poster in admiration.

Only later on did I know that the new pupil was going to be me, no one else, for I was the only one in my village to pursue my studies. Owing to poverty, some travelled to different cities to work and help their family. I also wanted to do the same then, but no one offered me work. Others travelled abroad because they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I felt so sad to see my ex-fellow pupils leaving me one by one. After a certain period of time, I had to enter secondary school and took the bus with new pupils from other villages.

In the second poster to the left, there was a city made of glass with different lights ranging from green to red. So many times did I hear of a city, but I had never visited one by the time. Though I was born in Tangiers, I don’t remember it so accurately to know what it was like. Meanwhile, my mother recounted to me the important places, streets and markets there. At first, I thought that once I graduated, I would work in the village like any other bricklayer or mason. That is why I did not make a fuss about visiting a city.

As soon as I earned my Baccalaureate degree, my family moved to El Jadida. Only then did I know that the city in the picture was merely going to be El Jadida. In the latter, I spent indelible moments, studied at the faculty there, graduated from it, and became a teacher at the age of twenty-two. Notwithstanding, I still look back on the other posters on the class wall and try to rack my brains to remember them all, but in vain. I have looked forward to the posters describing the position of teacher and writer, but I failed to remember them.

To my utter dismay, last summer, I paid the school a visit, peered into the broken windows for long, and found that all the posters had peeled off a long time ago and that new ones have supplanted them. I went forlorn and while clenching the bars of the window out of fury, someone patted my shoulder. I looked around only to find a ten-year-old boy smiling at me and asking me about the posters.

“Hi Sir! What do you think of the posters we drew this year?”

“ Wow, they’re really amazing ; great job !” I said.

I went home immediately and from that time onwards, I felt gladder than before simply because there is still a pupil who takes a keen interest in the posters hung on the class wall. I am certain that one day this ten-year-old pupil will sooner or later be in dire need of them so as to contemplate how he once lived.