Tux Watch

Short stories for humane resurgence.

It was second grade now, Mrs. Lang our new class teacher announced that we will celebrate green, and make our sandy school green with plants. Now that was interesting, all I could see around our school was sand, even our school emblem was the scorpion. Our school was on the outskirts of Dhahran built on a deserted old American Airbase in the Saudi desert established by the American Consulate. It was more of a city than a school with thousands of students and classroom blocks spread all over the place. Classrooms were bunkers; Dorms were huge canvas structures where fighter jets used to be maintained. The new airbase was still near by and at recess we could sit in the baseball field watching the jets take off and land on a not so distant runway strip.

The school already had some green patches, the botanical gardens on the north end, the grassy lawns in front of the teacher’s homes, and the green lawns around the school library, but the green stuff Mrs. Lang was discussing was even more exciting. So after recess and back in class, we were seated in a circle and the teacher explained to us why plants were important for us and that we should have our own little garden outside our class door. It was a science learning pedagogy I believe, to teach and learn while engaging practically with all that what was written in our science text books. We replaced the sand in the sandbox with soil and then the planted seeds, added fertilizer and everyone took turns on a daily basis giving water to the life we were adding a meaning to.

A few weeks after this sandbox garden activity, we would walk past other classrooms that had similar green boxes placed outside there doors and kids standing around laughing and admiring the results of their input. The day came when the plants were in full bloom, some had little flowers sprouting up, we were each given a small plastic cup and were shown how to carefully shovel and pick up a plant with our tiny hands and place it in the cup. The little cups with our beautiful little lively plants would then be taken to the green house in the botanical gardens and then will be taken out to various sections of the school to possibly grow into full bloom trees. We had again added something we did not know to the greater meaning of life.

We were directed towards many other amusing activities that were dedicated to bringing out our hidden creative capabilities. We were introduced to computers, computer games and text editors. Green and orange text would appear on the black screens of machines that had Monitors and Keyboards built into a box called Apple Macintosh computer machine. We were told that we must learn how to use these machines as they will help us throughout our lives and I was amazed that they were similar to the Commodore-64 game box I had back at home. I used to have this belief that anything with a Keyboard was basically a game box but my view was soon changed and I learned a whole new world of fun with Keyboards apart from just playing games.

We were also taken for art classes, put on aprons and play with clay, create ceramic pots and plaster masks based upon the African culture and tradition. We were told not to throw clay at each other neither point rulers, cutters and color pencils since that could hurt someone amongst us. We would mess up our hands including our aprons with paints and sometimes paint our faces and look like wild inhabitants from some unknown far off tribe. The teacher would collect our little creations and tell us that when we come back to the Arts Class next time, we will receive our pots baked so that they should not break and fall all over the floor when we tried to carry them back home for our mommies to see.

We used to have music classes where I used to learn to play the clarinet and my brother a huge instrument that looked more like a big horn, he liked guitars though, I wondered what made him choose such a big horn and carry it home that sounded like a bit elephant when he played it, God knows. We would sing songs, dance to music and play some music ourselves; it was heavenly fun in its own. There was music from various origins and cultures. We were also visited by musicians who played beautiful tunes that we had never earlier heard. This music whether it was played on a piano or was the beat of an African drum, it had a wild effect. The best of us were chosen for the school orchestra or the band that used to perform during Football season or the annual Halloween parade.

The guy with that big horn always used to be at the back with a companion holding a similar horn. Maybe that was what inspired my brother, the larger the instrument, the better chances to be selected in the band. In fact, my brother was told by my parents not to carry that big thing home with him since he used to startle and wake everyone up on weekend mornings with a loud noise that was no where near music. My brother bought in and gave up his big horn like instrument that I later on I found out was called a trombone, but now he had opted for a saxophone which is another long and annoying story. By the way, my brother ended up playing the guitar which was pretty much acceptable by my parents.

I have always been inspired by music in one way or the other. It affects my inner self in a very weird kind of way. It can actually make my heart sink if the tune is gloomy or can make me jump up and down wildly if hip hop, truly a mystic sensation in its own. Music can be a means to share, to convey a message, to spread the word, to please others or be pleased. When played in a group, it is symphony in harmony that grips one’s soul and takes it on a ride into a mystic world where a message of love and caring can be shared or spread. Everyday on our way back home, one of the seniors used to ask the bus driver to play a cassette and we would listen to music that would comprise of something called hard rock that wasn’t as satisfying as the one from music class, especially when the seniors made faces as if they were in extreme pain while making imaginary movements as if playing an electric guitar, it was loud but still amusing except for the painful part especially when the seniors were acting as if they were getting electric shocks.

End of Chapter-II

Stay tuned as more stories will follow, that is, if you liked these two chapters and would like me to continue them!

Copyleft 2006, Reminiscences from Innocence in Retrospective by Fouad Riaz Bajwa. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/