How often did I not gaze across the river, with such yearnings.
What lies across the river?
The secondary school.
My brothers and sisters attended school there.
Every morning, my older sisters would pack their lunch,
white rice with something to go with it.
These go into an aluminum lunch container.
Then they waited at the wharf.
Where a long boat would take them across the river to the school.
How I longed to go there.
From this side of the river, looking across.
I could see the figures of students there,
moving around like ants.
The buildings were more visible.
I had been there.
My sisters brought us there when they received their prizes for scoring top positions in class.
The principal, an English priest, Father Hiery, would hand out the prizes and intoned,
"Hip Hip...." and those assembled called out, "Hurray."
Alas, I never did go there.
My family moved to another town, the year before I was due to go there.
So close to it and it was removed from me.
I often wondered, would I be different today had my family not moved
and I had gone to that school?
No comments:
Post a Comment