“Are you still there?”

The question seemed so light, but somehow it lingered in my mind, like a distant call from a time long gone. That place was still there - the bungalow with its rusty tin roof, the red dirt schoolyard, and the teacher's voice echoing through the drizzly afternoons when winter was approaching.

Illustration: Internet

When I was a child, I was afraid of going to school. I was afraid of being teased by my friends because my family was poor, afraid of not being able to do my homework, afraid of my parents telling me to “quit school and help at home”. But there was one thing that made me want to go back to school, and that was the teacher’s voice. He taught the lessons slowly, clearly, word by word, and never got angry when we were naive and slow to understand.

I remember most the summer afternoons when the whole class stayed behind because it was raining heavily and we couldn’t go home. The teacher opened the door to his room and let us in. The room was tiny and full of books. The teacher opened a plastic box and took out some instant noodles, cooked them in a big pot, and then ladled them out for us to eat. I ate instant noodles many times, but that was probably the best time I had eaten instant noodles, and it was only later that I realized the reason was probably because I was sitting around eating with my teacher and friends.

One time I skipped school to go fishing. I thought the teacher would scold me, but he gently asked, “Did you catch a lot of fish today?” I was so scared that I didn’t dare look at him or say anything. The teacher asked again, “You caught a basket of fish today, but do you know what you lost?” I thought for a long time before I understood and answered that I had lost a lesson. The teacher nodded, still speaking in a gentle and affectionate voice, “Yes, I lost a lesson. But I think you lost more than that.” At that time, I was naive and didn’t understand everything, but from then on I didn’t skip school anymore.

He taught me many things that were not in the books. He taught me how to look at others with kind eyes. He taught me that poverty is not a shame, laziness is. He taught me how to keep promises, even small promises to children. He did not say all of those things in lessons, but he lived them for us students to see and follow.

Now I am an adult. Living in the city, everything is fine. Every holiday, I go back to my hometown, across the hill to visit my teacher. Without notice, he is there, welcoming me with the smile I remember from when I was six.

The last time I came back, I saw that the teacher had aged a lot. His hair was all white, his back was more bent than before. But he still got up early, still opened a class for poor, studious children. "I teach to help me miss my job less," he laughed, his voice small and light. I listened, my heart suddenly felt sad, his whole life was devoted to the career of educating people, ferrying people. Every time I came back, I talked with him for a long time. We sat and talked all afternoon, he asked about my wife and children, about his work, then told me about the current class. "Children are much smarter than before," he said, his eyes shining, "but they are also more difficult, more pressured." He confided that there were students who studied well but were not happy, always worried. Listening to him talk, I realized that he was no different from before, still caring for his students, even though he no longer taught officially at school.

Every time I visit my teacher, I am glad that he is still healthy, still there for me to visit, still there for me to sit and listen to him tell stories...

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