Some People Teach You Science, Some Others Teach You Life

Sometimes, some people who came into your life can really change your perspectives about life without them realizing. When I was 14 years old, I moved to an International school located in Malaysia, in that school I met a lot of people who I never thought will ever be really close to me.

I have a lot of friends and some best friends, the closest ones came from Turkey and Syria. We were like ‘those type’ of people who really could not hold laughs, a simple thing could make us laugh desperately. There was one boy in our class who was very waggish, he came from Nigeria and he was really funny. He was very optimistic and used to conceive that he was the most handsome guy in the class. Whenever he passed through the school hallway, he used to vociferate “watch out ladies, the handsome prince is coming”. Then, his homely face, that was withal rather compelling would appear. Whatever he did that time, me and my best friend could not stop laughing, until the fact that one day our teacher kicked us out of class for that reason.

One turning point is when one day, me and my best friend went to the canteen to get some snacks, we bought strawberry juice us usual, and that was our mandatory drink. We saw this boy bought a pack of plain bread and went to the elementary school, and it was weird, because we were studying in junior high school that time.

He waited in front of a class, and surprisingly his brothers and sisters showed up. He had 3 brothers and a sister that time, and all of them ate together from that one pack of bread, plain, without any jam or any dressing. Once they have finished, this boy came back to our school, unquestionably, me and my best friend had run faster so that he could not see us. The next day, we were still curious, so we followed him again, eventually, we understood that he was doing it all this time, and that plain bread was the thing he bought every day because he could not afford anything else.

Another moment that I remember, is when the boys had a football match during PE class. This friend of mine was suitably our class’ main goalkeeper, so he became the goalkeeper for that tournament. During the first half break, he went to the toilet and did not show up until the second half almost started, and a new goalkeeper had taken his position. So, I asked my friend who was one of the football players about that boy, and he told me, “the guy resisted to continue the game because he forgot to do his homework and he wants to complete first”.

Me and my friend were being snoopy, but here, I believe it was essential, haha.  We went upstairs to check on him, surprisingly, he was sitting on his chair in the class, and fixing his ripped shoes. At that time I was totally amazed by him, in the outside he looks like a boy with no burden at all, heedless, laughing all the time and making jokes. But deep inside, he was a very responsible boy who had borne a very heavy burden. For his age was really young, but his behavior was very mature.

Now, I do not know where he is at, nor I have any information about him. But I never forgot the lessons that he taught me inadvertently. That you can never judge a book by its cover and that there is always a reason to be happy. That it is not where you choose to be, because that isn’t an option, but it is who you choose to be and that’s the thing you can decide and that will be the determination of your life.