The gap between the rich and the poor has been widening alarmingly since the mid-1990s. The respect that outstanding students had the classroom faded; Other student no longer approach them for help during exams. Everything changed. The classroom became more like fashion showroom; Everyone in it talk about brands of shirts, shoes, and even the latest model of the cars.
Khaled was an outstanding student. But his difficult circumstances forced him to wear a china made man-dress throughout the school year and rarely he wears some other used clothes.
That is why his affluent colleagues called him “Dirty” Khaled”. Those hurtful expressions bother him a lot. However, he kept a shy smile that hid a lot of pain.
The professors' interest in him constituted an important incentive for him to continue his studies. His participation during the class and his genius
solutions to homework made him admired by all his teachers. Perhaps the classmates and professors did not notice that Khaled has some other worries; A skinny child has to walk ten kilometers a day to reach his school in the city center. He lives with one of his relatives in the tin neighborhoods; where there is no water or electricity; Which forced him to spend some night time in the street to be able to study under public lighting poles. He lives on just one meal a day; However, fast food and soft drinks that his classmates eat almost every hour did not attract his attention. Every time he goes out for a break between classes, he sits isolated recalling his long journey with suffer. Many essential questions about his daily
reality revolve in his head, such as: How can he find a bus ticket "ten Ouguiya"... and how can he get to his relative’s hut before lunch time? Sometimes he gets frustrated and asks himself: Will this situation change one day?
School became a nightmare for him; Because it reminds him of his suffering and the great financial differences between him and his classmates. One day, while Khaled was walking back to his home in a sweltering heat, he fainted in the street; This coincided with the pass of one of the benefactors, who took him to the hospital. When Khaled regained consciousness, the doctor asked him about his name and address. He replied that he lives with his relatives in a poor neighborhood. and that he is a high school student (math division). The doctor said to him spontaneously, do you have proof of that? After a lot of effort, the starving young man pulled out of his pocket a transcript with a GPA of nineteen out of twenty. The doctor carefully looked at the paper; and in the remark’s column was all excellent, excellent, excellent …
He looked at Khaled in the eyes and said, jokingly, you are an excellent student. And there is no doubt that you have the price of the lab tests, right? The doctor was sure that his patient's confused look suggested that he was surrendering to the
unknown. He repeated the same sentence. But the student's miserable response was shocking; when he said in a voice like a painful groan “Before I fell on the ground, I was thinking of a way to get a round trip bus ticket (20 Ouguiya) so that I wouldn't miss my math class”. The doctor turned around and cried so much to the extent that some of the medical equipment he was carrying fell on the floor. He could not speak because he was crying so hard, he ten ordered one of the lab workers; to do the necessary tests at his own expense. The tests showed that Khaled suffers malnutrition diseases.
In the school, Khaled’s class missed its vitality, and the professors asked about their distinguished student; some of them went to the corner where Khaled used to sit. Everyone in the school remembered him. Khaled realized then that he was an important person and that he could harness misery to be one of the most important factors for his success. Khaled continued on the same path; But many variables almost caused him to surrender to
homelessness; After the father of the family he lives with retired from the military, The family was forced to sell their house and migrate to the middle of the country to work in building mud houses; This was not encouraging for a student in his final year; Khaled thought of all the possibilities; He finally settled on a night-time job as a shopkeeper in a poor neighborhood. The new job requires him to stay up until three in the morning. The diligent pupil succeeded in providing shelter; But it was at the expense of his studies. In the last months before the Highschool diploma exam, Khaled’s teachers noticed that he had lost
his usual activity. He started sleeping and snoring in class which makes him a hero of a satirical play. It caused the professors to lose control of the class as a result of the riotous laughter and some of them leaving the class to call out their colleagues to watch daily scenes. This matter caused embarrassment to the school staff as well as the administration, they tried to contain the situation in other ways in a gratitude of the past of this distinguished student. But things spiraling out of control required stricter measures.
The principal brought Khaled to his office and asked him to bring urgently his guardian; Because, in his view, the situation is no longer acceptable; He did not know that Khaled’s guardian is an old man who had been herding sheep in a secluded area in the mountains; to support his seven brothers who gather around their father every night near a blazing fire to tell them about their brother who has been working in the government for last 12 years.
Dr.Meme Ould Aballahi
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