Being the first child of the family is not an easy task by nature. I am saying this not because I am the first child but from experience. I am the last child of a family of seven. My mom once told me she wanted to give birth to a dozen children. This simply means there are nine people in my family,seven children and two parents. The first child of my family had suffered a lot to help my parents.
Having this great number of children with no well-to-do job was my parents' biggest mistake. My father whose soul I know is resting in perfect peace was a peasant farmer and my strong and caring mom was a petty trader. The little income they get from selling a few vegetables and fruits from the farm was often used for buying foodstuffs and other essential things like soap, to pay for light bills and others. My parents only buy us new dresses once in a blue moon, mostly on special times such as Christmas and New Years after we have cried our lives out.
My first three siblings were registered in a school but I and the other four often stayed home due to lack of money to purchase books and study materials. I started primary school when I was eleven. I was the eldest in my class. My classmates often mocked me by calling me "Papa class". Having been embarrassed and called this name for a long time, I got used to it.
The third week of every month is always a class intersport. During this exercise and leisure period,we often do not have class teachings. The class intersport was often organized in a way that grade 2 will challenge grade 3 and grade four to grade 5. Grade 1 were the supporters and spectators. One of the days we were spectating the basketball game between the grade four and grade five, I saw a strange bush track. I left the mini stadium and followed the path to find where it burst out of. I was amazed and happy with what I saw. I saw very big heaps of books disposed of by school. The place was more like the school paper waste disposal site.
I felt like a poor man who had seen a pool of money to swim in. I felt like my sorrows had been taken away. I had been embarrassed several times for not having notebooks and pens. So I picked up as many books as I knew would be enough for me and my siblings who didn't have enough. I also saw bags scattered all over but I didn't want to pick the bags because I knew that the former owner would have easily identified me if I had used it in school.
When I got home, I used one of the pens I picked from the site and canceled the old names on the books and wrote mine above it. The next day was my worst ever. I had the biggest embarrassment of my life. When I arrived at school,I heard a rumor that thieves badged into our school last night and broke the student lockers,stole bags containing books and other personal belongings of teachers and pupils.
Source
A general checking was done. The school security personnels checked every pupils' bag. When mine was checked and the personnel saw that all my books had the old names canceled,he took me to the proprietress office and they investigated me there. I told them how and when I got the books but they didn't believe me. They suspected me or my parents or siblings or friends to have been the thieves that vandalized their school lockers.
I was called up at the assembly hall and disgraced publicly in front of my friends,enemies and teachers. I was later suspended with in-school labor for a week.
All these embarrassments were for an offense I never committed and I have promised myself never to forget that day and that my future children will never suffer lack in school. It's a memory I know can never be washed away from me .
