"First come, first served," is a well-known adage in English. Being first not only earns you the reward but also leaves the experience fresh in your memory. Think of the first person to walk on the Moon (Neil Armstrong), the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest (Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay), the first poet of Nepal (Adikavi Bhanubhakta Acharya) and countless other examples…! They remain clear and vivid in our memory.
That may be why the school where my parents first enrolled me remains so vivid in my memory. It was a pre-school called City Montessori based at Ghattekulo in Kathmandu, approximately a decade ago. As an introverted toddler, I didn’t enjoy the environment at that time. Adjusting to a new environment was a tough job for me. Hence, as far as I can remember, my first school day did not go so well. I cried a lot when my parents left the school, leaving me behind.
The next day, I was reluctant to go to school. But as soon as my mother warned me that a kidnapper, hiding in a paddy bush, would put me in a sack and abduct me if I refused to go to school. Driven by this fear of being carried off, I immediately decided that attending school was the safer alternative. It was the month of November, if my memory serves well, and the paddy field was nearby the house where we were staying at. The house belonged to Kanchan grandma.
The next day, I convinced myself and started going to school without complaint. I interacted with a few teachers and friends. As the days went by, I started learning new things. It wasn’t so hard to adjust to the pre-school due to caring environment and the lovely ambience. There were a lot of playthings, seesaws, slides and swings – a whole variety of apparatus. Learning through different digital gadgets, games and methodologies helped me remember points efficiently. Caring school environment made me feel motivated in learning. They taught me to the test and I aced every subject, too.
Even though my attendance at City Montessori lasted only for around one and a half years from Play Group to Nursery, I acquired many new things including useful life-skills that proved valuable later in my life. My class teacher was very kind, caring, and loving. Her name was Sunita Paudel. Due to her caring behavior, I could not find it hard to get adjusted to the new school environment. She cared me in such a way that the school was my second home. Under her caring, it was easier for me to learn and pass the school time. And the childhood learning laid a solid foundation for the journey of my education.
However, as a saying goes, "good things don’t last forever," I understood its meaning the moment when Sunita ma'am left the school for Butwal. She did not explicitly say that she was leaving the school permanently. And, as a child we did not understand that she was departing the school for good. I can very well remember her farewell words, "I will come back to see you when you are grown up."
After I completed my grade Nursery, my parents relocated to a new place in Bhaktapur. They purchased a piece of land and constructed a new house at Katunje in Bhaktapur. I looked forward to start a fresh life in this new location. It’s a peaceful, clean and pristine site, with the lush-green woods just a few meters above the house.
Even after almost a decade and having surrounded by natural beauties in my new location, my class teacher, Miss Sunita's farewell words do still resonate with me, "I will come back when … grown-up!" This memory fills me with wistfulness and a curiosity to know how the things have been over the years. I often wonder where those classmates are now and how my class teacher, Sunita ma'am, has been doing! Anticipating a meeting with you some day!
(Panjum is a ninth grader studying at Medha Secondary School.)
(Nepalkhabar encourages students to send in their articles on any issues of their interest. The article should be around 500 to 700 words in English and sent via [email protected]. We will select, edit and duly publish them in our blog section.)
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