Observations made of someone’s work, translated…
“There’s this smell on Der’s body, and all the rest of the class disliked him, none of them wanted to be in the same group, or sit next to him.” “Der is really bad in school, couldn’t do his assignments, and even, the afterschool help sessions are useless for him”, “Der’s dad is a drunk, and took to gambling, ALL of his scholarship moneys got squandered away by his father gambling; Der told me he’d not seen his mom a long time, that he misses her cooking very much………”, the homeroom teacher often discussed with her colleagues about Der, worked really hard, to help him out, and she’d become, taxed.
picture from the papers…
Der, who was a fifth grader, is small built, on his darkened face, there were, a pair, of rolling eyes. After his parents divorced, his father who’d made a living off of fishing and planting the vegetables, because he enjoyed drinking too much, and took to gambling, he’d become, negligent toward his own young; as the homeroom instructor made the family visits, she’d found that the family of three slept on the darkened, stuffy, and damp room, and that the quilts were so wrinkled like the pickled cabbage, and, heaven only knows how long it’s been, since the family cleaned off the pillow sheets. But, the kids had, gotten so used to, living in this awful environment that, they’d not thought that something was wrong with it, it’s a wonder, that the children would wreak, and they’d not known about it themselves. The homeroom teacher consoled Der’s father, to tidy up the house, and he’d just, smiled, and brushed her off.
not my photograph…
It was, a hard to come by sunny weekend, we’d gone to the beaches as a family. As we were, sitting on the docks, watching the beautiful sunset, a pair of scuba diving suited parent-and child, with the fish nets slung behind the shoulders, with the bamboo fish baskets around the waists, with fishing poles, slowly, came up, from the beaches’ receding tides, behind them, was the beautiful sunset, I’d quickly, taken out my cell phone, and captured this beautiful scene.
“Hi, principal!”, I’d focused my eyes, the pair in my photo were, Der and his father. Der was wearing the diver suit one size too big, flashed his teeth in smile, and, excitedly waved to me to say hi. I’d asked if Der would often go out to sea with his father? He said, that today, he was only there, to help his father collect back the net his father had set previously, “We were able to catch a few mackerels, we will be making the catches into fresh soup and cooking on the grills!” Der happily showed off the catches inside his bamboo basket, and started, introducing me to the various kinds of fish, but, being a lover of fish, I’d not known their names, and so, Der had, patiently, gone through all of his catches by name with me again.
not my photo…
Der’s father picked several leafs from the large tree, and, stringed a couple of their catches from the gills through to the mouth, handed them to me, and told me, to be careful, when I scrape off the scales. I’d watched the father and son leave slowly, and, the phrases, “the Prides of Knowledge” and “Skilled and Technical” came up into my mind, let me, dumbfounded for quite a while.
And so, this encounter I’m sure, had changed the principal’s view about this kid, because he’d not known about this fifth grade boy’s life before, so the principal was rash in judgment, but after the encounter with the student and his father at the beach that day, I’m sure, that the principal had gained a bit more wisdom, and he’s probably not going to jump to rash conclusion like he’d done about this young boy with someone else again.
Life, the Obstacle Course 