On that first day of school, I was perhaps the most exhilarated person in class. I was excited to be starting fourth grade and elated to be in this new place where everyone looked prim and proper and girls made their hair and spoke proper English. Even though I looked nondescript compared to everyone else's sophisticated nature, I was glad to be here. Little did I know that my first class that day was going to expose my language deficiency. As the teacher wrote the word, "consovolpho," on the board, I had no idea what that meant. All through the class, as she elaborated on the topic, my memory roamed, with the word singing in my ears. The more I tried to decipher the meaning of this word, the more obfuscated I became, until eventually I gave up.
"Hey you! Why are you not writing?" The sudden shift in attention brought me back to the present. With all eyes on me, I did not need a soothsayer to tell me that the question was directed at me. What was I going to say? Did I even have adequate vocabulary to answer the question? At that moment and time, I saw the bitter truth glaring at me; it penetrated deep into my soul, traversing all my tissues and organs that it hurt. I was an illiterate, a stack one at that. With the little courage I could muster, all I could mutter was a muffled "no pensu" when I meant to say that I had no pencil. The teacher only smiled. She must have seen how much of a struggle it was for me to utter that single phrase. I realized that my English had failed me and the reality of it hit me so hard that all I wanted to do was cry. But I had embarrassed myself enough already, so I had to fight the tears. Then came the roars, voices so clamorous that one could hear the reverberation 20 meters away. The entire class was laughing at me, at my inability to speak proper English. All I could do at this point was cry. I sat on my chair shaking, wishing the ground could open and swallow me up.
