Bitter Immigration

Upon observing the class, especially those students that I was grouped with, I gave a high probability that my recent sickness would return. Some of them were covered up to their ankles in cow shit. It was clear that after school they didn't have any job aside from taking care of their animals in the barn. Their long nails and their crusted hands were a further proof they bathed even less than once a month. The teacher came to class half an hour after my father left. The class monitor, who was the son of a Haji, said “stand” and we all stood and after the teacher had taken his seat, we also sat. There was an absolute silence in the classroom and there wasn't any sign of noise or talking. Their wild looks at each other's heads and hands indicated that there was something going on that I was unaware of. The teacher came to the front of the room with a long slim piece of wood in his hand and started looking at each student's hands. A moment later the classroom was converted to a scene that reminded one of an angry and heartless father beating his family. Most of the children started crying immediately after the backs of their dry and crusted hands were struck by the wood. Pleading, they would say, “Sir we promise to bathe, don't beat us.” and he would call them donkey's children and idiots saying, “You will never become a person, senseless crap.” Even though the classroom and the poor situation of the students made a bad reflection in my mind, it never became a reason for slowness or a lack of improvement in my writing and reading. I compensated for the lessons that I missed very quickly. It was not more than two months into my education before my talent and my readiness in lessons affected everyone. In the afternoons when my father came to the school, the village's teacher talked about my cleverness and asked him send me to the city to continue my education later on. My father was very happy, maybe because of the better future that was in front of me. My mother, whose life was being taken over by the harshness of poverty and being far from the city, felt that I was her only hope and that maybe one day I could bring light to her dark life. She sat me next to herself at nights and asked me to read books for her. Even though the material of my lessons was often not compatible with her pained thoughts and soul, nevertheless she enjoyed listen to them. When it became clear to the teacher that I was the best student in the class, he chose me to be the class monitor of the first grade. I checked their homework and asked them questions about the previous lesson. Unfortunately, the teacher was indifferent to his duties and abused the situation, sleeping until noon some days and not even coming to the class in the afternoon other days. For these times he left taking attendance to me and said, “Give me the name of anyone whose lessons or behavior you are not happy with for punishment.” In this period of time a new world appeared in front of me, a world where I had gotten feathers and wings. In the mornings before the class began, I would sit in east side of the schoolyard next to a few other students on a long platform that was built to take advantage of the morning sunshine. The students asked me any mathematics or Farsi questions with which they had difficulties. Sometimes, when I felt they made me tired, I went to a garden in front of the school that had an old square door and one of whose walls was connected to a building that had a wall in common with the school. In this fall season the garden had a yellow body, but being alone there was joyful for me.