Author: Osman (Page 1 of 2)

I was born in Nouakchott, a Mauritanian country in north-west Africa that is not very well known. It’s mostly desert, has a population of 4 million people, and I was born in the capital on December 16, 2004. When I was born into a poor family, we didn’t have much money. My dad had a little store in the phone market where he sold phones, but he was making like 100 dollars a month, so it wasn’t easy . But my dad got his education in Russia and worked there too, and he is a very educated person. That’s some I will always be always.Education was always a big part of my life and a big part of the environment I live in, especially Mauritanian society. It’s all about education and people judge based on what degree you have and where you got your education. So it’s a very judgmental society and since I was a little kid in the education system, I was judged that I wasn’t very smart because I didn’t have the resources because I wasn’t rich, so other students and other people were going to call me dumb because I didn’t go to rich kids’ schools, but I always knew I would prove everyone wrong.

School in Mauritania The conditions are horrible, like horrible. The tables are usually broken and the classroom is full of harmful dust and chemicals. And on top of everything, I started school late because I had extreme pneumonia since I was a toddler, so it wasn’t easy going to school because you got to pay around 50-100 dollars per month for school, so most kids don’t get the opportunity. So most of the kids just go out in the streets and do jobs that pay like 1 dollar a month or something, or sell drugs in the streets or become gangsters. In particular, my neighborhood that I was living in was for poor people. Everyone there was poor or very poor. People work very hard, striving that their children will get them out of the neighborhood and give them money when they grow up. That’s what every parent does their best to get their kids to school or job at such a young age. So normally everyone is working hard in the whole neighborhood, but some people just accept their fate and state, so they just leave in their little huts while surviving day to-day on neighbors’ leftovers or food. Because everyone is like very close, giving each other food and taking care of each other if they need anything. The whole neighborhood knows each other.

I was told as a kid I wasn’t as good as other kids in school. Even my own family were calling me dumb at school because my grades weren’t good, so referring to my point that everyone judges your education and your grades as a kid, anyone that asks about a child will ask about their grades because people are very nosey. So whenever someone asks if my grades weren’t good because it took me a long time to learn things when I was a child and I grew up in a very chaotic big family, I always say no because it was something new to me and took me a long time to get used to. And I didn’t attend many days of school because of pneumonia and asthma attacks I used to have. Most of the time I was at the hospital because my pneumonia was so bad that I couldn’t breath sometimes, so my mom and dad would stay up with me At the hospital all night or some of my uncles’ So school was strange and useless to me because I barely went because of illnesses and my mother’s refusal to let me go, but my father kept telling her to let me go.

Unlike the very advanced American education system, the Mauritanian system is very outdated. In the US, students are provided with the technology needed to excel in school. In Mauritiania, students have to learn everything from their teacher, and on some rare occasions, they are provided with a textbook. Students have a hard time even graduating high school because of the extremely difficult exams that they take in their senior year. Most students give up on school once they fail this test. And when they do fail, the school system expects them to keep redoing their senior year until they pass. The chances of passing are very low. So this results in many students’ dropping out and giving up on their education. The education system, I think, is a system where some people fit inside it and some don’t because we all have different passions and we’re made for different things I personally think school was made for workers, not businessmen and athletes, and many other things, but we do need school people who like school and people who want to be works.We need doctors,nurses,lawyers, and other workers but I think personally it’s not the life I would want and many others agree with me, even some of the workers, but that’s the safest option, which is education/school or just force your way into school even if you don’t enjoy it and do your casual 9-5 for money. It won’t be as much as business people or athletes, but it’s not risky like they say. We don’t have many people who like to take risks. Everything you do is a risk, but you have to look at the situation and take calculated risks.

The events that occurred to me taught me that I am not suited to school, but I was forced to attend because of my parents.But I would like to refer to Albert Einstein’s quote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. ” This quote I really like it because everyone has different talents and shouldn’t be judged on other things. If they aren’t good at school, it doesn’t mean they are failures or stupid; it simply means that it isn’t their passion or purpose on this planet.I go by this quote every day.