Ms. Necessity...My Best Teacher, Ever!
Posted on Tuesday, 4 October 2016
In
commemoration of the World Teachers’ Day/ October 6… (a reblog)
Ms.
Necessity…My Best Teacher, Ever!
by Apolinario Villalobos
Each of us has one teacher in our lifetime
that stands out. While others consider their Math teacher as the best, some
consider their English teacher as one. Mine, is Ms. Necessity…my best
teacher…ever!
Born without the proverbial silver spoon in
my mouth since childhood, struggle has become synonymous with my life…but Ms.
Necessity was always just a few feet ahead of me to show the way. For my thirst
for knowledge at an early age, Ms. Necessity made me collect old newspapers
that lined the inside of boxes of dried fishes that my parents sold in the
market. For doing so, I earned not only bouts of pinches from my elder sister but
ear- twitching, as well, because the bundles of papers that I brought home made
them pinch their nose. I had to keep them under a bed and would bring them out
when I was alone to admire the big letters that I would copy on our dusty yard.
Every space of our yard would be filled with words copied from newspapers that
smelled of dried fish…and so was I, too, at the end of the day.
When I finally entered a school room as a
“visitor” (equivalent of the prep today), Ms. Necessity told me to use
discarded plastic bags found in a dump beside a bakery near our home for my
“school bag”, so I went there and gathered as many sturdy bags as I could find.
I got me plenty of “school bags”, some of which I kept as spare. Our parents
could not afford to buy us real school bags which during the time were
considered as novelties that only the rich in our town could afford. Ms.
Necessity also told me to make my own raincoat out of the discarded plastic
bags. Not only was I able to make one for me, but also another one for an elder
brother.
For school allowance, Ms. Necessity told me
to sell ripe fruits of our star apple in the market on Saturdays and Sundays.
Ms. Necessity also told me to ask our neighbor for their fallen ripe tamarind
fruits so that I could sell them in school. Due to the abundance of bulgur
wheat and oatmeal doled out by American missionaries in our school that I and
my brothers brought home, Ms. Necessity told us to persevere on them for
breakfast and lunch rather than go to school with empty stomach. Some months,
the school was also given yellow corn meal that the Home Economics teacher
cooked and given to the children during recess period. Ms. Necessity told me to
fashion a cup out of pad paper to hold the gruel cooked into thick and sticky
consistency that I slurped down without the use of spoon as I had none. The
rest of the pupils brought cup or saucer and spoon. Those were my colorful
elementary days, with Ms. Necessity beside me.
Later in life, after overcoming the pains
of loss of loved ones and consistent wants, Ms. Necessity told me to persist
and just go ahead in following my dreams which I did. She made me accept things
as they were without any regret or complaint. Ms. Necessity told me that
despite the vastness of life, it was brimming with opportunities for those who
were not finicky and could be grabbed by dint of hard work. Many times did she
remind me about it…that I proved to be just true.
What is nice about Ms. Necessity is that
she never leaves me until now. I thank God, for giving me such a great teacher
as Ms. Necessity!
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