“How did I get up here?”

Hacking, the students’ epic pass-time, has long been a tradition of MIT. I think I like it; sitting here, I can see the Charles River glistening with the reflected lights from the Boston skyline. I turn my head: MIT. Maseeh, that marvelous castle, my new home cast in a bright yellow light. Majestic, I think. I turn again: Simmons, a Cambridge landmark. And then again: Stata; “that tall awkward building,” I recall my orientation leader saying. I swivel my head around and around. I am mesmerized. The view spins in front of me as I wonder, How did I get here? and materializes into a sunny morning.

 

FOUR

The ball is thrown into the air, and Charles is racing after it. He forgets about everything else. Unfortunately, all he sees is the ball. He doesn’t see me, a small skinny four-year-old kid. I see it all – the ball hurtling over my head, Charles doing one of those cool jumps you see in the movies to catch the ball, the impact. Stunned, I don’t think about anything. My brain barely registers that he has run into me and that I’m falling down the stairs, out of the classroom. “Why does the classroom have to be raised so high?” is all my four-year-old mind complains about.

The fall lasts forever – as if to mock me. I finally hit the ground. Searing pain shoots up my hands and knees, but it is nothing compared to the pain in my forehead. Naturally, I cry. Charles is not sorry.

He mumbles: “Why was that little kid in my way in the first place?” or at least, that’s what I could read from his unrepentant face. As I am carried away to the nurse’s office, blood is spilling down my face into my eyes, but I can see a little clearer. The world outside of home is not so kind.

 

FOUR AND A HALF

I am being called to the front of the classroom by Teacher Anna. I am shivering as I walk to the front of the class. With each step I take, her figure grows larger. Nothing is more terrifying to me at the time than a towering figure holding a long wooden stick.

“Why haven’t your parents paid the school fees yet?” she is shouting at me.

“They said that they are going to pay next week. They don’t have the money yet,” I answer, feeling that this is a very satisfactory answer.

The next thing I know, I am being forced to lie down on the ground. Whip! Whap! Teacher Anna is caning me with a wooden stick. I am too shocked to react; I am the one being blamed for not paying the fees. Teacher Anna is usually a good teacher. Her punishment doesn’t teach me anything except that people aren’t always who they appear to be.

 

FIVE

Recess. My least favorite time of the school day. I have nothing to do. For a while I watch a couple of kids kicking around an avocado as a soccer ball, then I stroll to the big field down the hill. It’s only four years after the war, and this school was used as a military camp. Kids climb into the rusted tanks and pretend to be soldiers. Others pick up bullet capsules that are empty and some that aren’t. But I am not a fighter. I don’t like that kind of stuff. Bored still, I walk on down the hill, and right on my path is an avocado fruit. Thoughtlessly, I kick the avocado like a soccer ball down the hill.

“Niko yewe sha,” I hear someone call. I turn back to see if it’s me they are calling. Five angry-looking kids are glaring at me.

“Nta soni?” one kid asks me.

I am confused. How dare you? I repeat in my head. His face is contorted with anger. I have no idea what I have done to offend him.

Out of the blue, he pushes me. A fight? I’ve never been in a fight.

“What?” I ask back, completely perplexed.

A second boy moves forward. Even though I know I am not in his good graces, I am surprised when he kicks me right between the legs. Agony. I curl down to the ground. The kids are screaming insults at me:

“Maheru!” he curses me. “That was our avocado you kicked.”

From the ground, I can see hundreds of avocado fruits lying around me.

 

SIX

It’s the end of the first trimester. My best friend, Dickson, and I are standing side by side, just like we usually sit in class. We are both anxious; the class’ top students are being called to the podium in front of the school assembly. Our headmaster Mr. Munzenze’s voice reverberates throughout the field, “and our top student in grade one is…” I clutch my backpack’s bright yellow strap in anticipation… “Amina.”

What?! Maybe, I heard wrong. My name isn’t Amina! Maybe they misspelled my name. My mind runs through all the possible ways that this is a mistake. My best friend, Dickson, tells me not to worry. Disappointment is such a bad feeling, so unbearable that I promise myself never to go through it again.

 

NINE

I change schools and miss my best friend, Dickson. Things are different here. They have teachers for every subject while I am used to one teacher for all subjects. At the end of the first trimester, the school is assembled for the end of term examination results.

I’m not expecting it at all, but I am called to the podium as top student in my class. No one cheers for me, though. I hypothesize that kids are not friendly because they have been together for years and don’t want to assimilate new members into their class. I hang out instead with the upperclassmen and find them more fun.

In class, when there’s no teacher, the noise in the classroom gets as loud as the November thunderstorms. Everyone seems to have someone to talk to. I escape this pandemonium into my notebooks and familiarize myself with everything in there. Then groups of students go to the front of the classroom and have ‘karate’ fights. But I am not a fighter. I pay them no attention. Instead, I plunge back into my math notebook and reread it all until I know all of it like the back of my hand.

At the end of the year, there’s a new student who reminds me of myself when I first got here. We are exactly the same. We share the same first name and like me, he has no friends.

“Je suis, tu es, il est…” I interrupt his reading when I notice that he is not getting up to go for his lunch. He doesn’t have his lunchbox today.

“Hey! Eric!” I call to him, and he raises his face from his French notebook.

“Hey,” he answers with a smile.

“Do you want to share lunch with me?” I offer. His face lights up. We share lunch and talk about how some of our classmates are “jerks” and have a good laugh over it. I am glad. The world is not so scary when you are facing it with your best friend.

 

TWELVE

In a few months, I will be taking the National Primary School Leaving Examinations. I have been the top student in my class since my first year here. My math professor, Teacher Ronald, is my idol. He can add numbers faster than I can blink. I do well in his classes. He is satisfied. But in my English class, I’m not doing too well. I hate the teacher, Mrs. What’s-her-face. She’s always saying, “I have been to London and in London… ” She never teaches us anything, but we are all masters when it comes to knowing the names of the different cosmetic shops she visited in London. Teacher Ronald is one of the few to notice that my English scores are dropping.

“Manzi,” I hear from down the hall in Teacher Ronald’s familiar voice. He always calls me by my last name.

“Yes, sir?” I answer, eager to know what new math trick he is going to show me.

Instead, he tells me that he has looked at my report and seen that my English scores are not as good as the others.

“If I have a table of scores—90, 80 and 70—what will be the average?” he asks me.

I think fast. “The average is 80.”

“Exactly.”

I always feel a twinge of excitement when I hear him say this.

“Then what happens when 90 drops to 60?”

“The average drops from 80 to 70,” I answer proudly.

He doesn’t say anything. He lets this sink in my mind.

“Your English scores don’t look too good. You need to pull them up.”

Then he hands me my first novel ever, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. He tells me to read all of it and later tell him what it’s about. I struggle to get through the first chapters, but once I am accustomed to reading a ‘novel,’ it begins to flow. It’s about a man stuck on an island who manages to build a home on the island.

“Come to dinner!” my aunt screams at the top of her lungs a few days later. I refuse to go. I am ‘hooked’ to the book. My aunt has a short temper; she comes to my room and decides to punish me for not obeying her. As she is caning me, all I can think about is how Robinson Crusoe has taken up target-shooting as a hobby, and even though it wastes bullets, it saves his life later on.

A few months later: It is the morning of the Preparation Exams day. I wake up feeling sick. Perfect timing! I say to my body’s immune system. I go to the exam. I puke at least five times during the exam. My scores are a joke.

One month later, the real exam is here. I don’t throw up this time. I am expecting to get top position nationwide.

 

I am playing a game of cards with my cousin Samson. Suddenly, his sister Madudu runs in screaming: “You won! Eric! You won!”

I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“The national exam results are out! I just heard your name on the radio!” she screams.

Of course, as an over-achiever, the conclusion I draw from this is that I am the first.

“You were the second!” she screams out euphorically.

What?! No! Disappointment hits me like a punch in the stomach. Madudu, jumping up and down, expects me to join in her celebration. I don’t want to believe this. Second? No. I must be first. She must have heard wrong. It can’t be right.

My mother’s call a few minutes later to congratulate me only confirms my fears. “Be thankful for what you have,” she consoles me later that night.

 

FOURTEEN

“Service?” I call out.

“Serve,” someone from the other team responds.

Pow! The volleyball flies just over the net. The trajectory of the ball is flawless; beautiful. I can’t quite figure out if a negative parabola or a sine function graphs it. Challenge accepted.

 

FIFTEEN

New school. Kids aren’t unfriendly, but by force of habit, I immerse myself in my books. It’s no longer an escape – it’s an infatuation. I can’t wait for the national Math final in a few months.

It’s finally placed in front of me, and we are instructed not to open the paper until told to do so. I have to force myself to keep it closed. I think about Teacher Ronald, and in my mind I tell him, This time, I won’t be runner-up, I’ll be first. My hand breaks rank and opens the paper. For a brief moment, I can see my favorite geometry question; it’s called the “fireman’s problem.” But my excitement doesn’t last very long. “You there!” the instructor shouts at me. I am pulled out of my trance. “You get three points off for opening the exam before I allowed you to do so!”

I do not beat myself up since I am driven to do this by my passion. Two months later, however, a journalist is trying to take the best picture of me with a good smile, but it is turning out to be a challenge for him because, according to him, my smiles aren’t genuine. I have found out I got the top national score in Math: 97%. But the record was set at 99% by someone five years before. I could have broken that record if only I hadn’t opened the paper.

Be thankful for what you have, I tell myself.

 

Snap! My friend takes a picture of me, startling me.

“This is the most awesome thing I’ve ever done!” my new friend exclaims.

I am looking at the Green Building, the tallest building in Cambridge. My two friends are sitting next to me. I smile genuinely as one continues to take pictures.

“Maybe we should climb that,” I suggest.

“Nah, they say it’s heavily alarmed,” another friend says. And my smile loses its genuineness.

Be happy with what you have, I tell myself. But deep down, I know that, like all human beings, I never will.