One day, I went to school. It was a regular day when we started history class. Then, my teacher started to scream at us, “Boys, go down under the tables.” The war had begun. We were so scared. A lot of students were crying because of the sound of the bombs and artillery. That sound, …
Category: Childhood
The Red Day
I had only been in America for a few months when I learned that on February 14th, we are supposed to wear a red dress because it is Valentine’s Day, when people celebrate love. Red is universally accepted as the color of true love, romance, and also blood. My friend Anju told me to wear …
The Priceless Toy Gun
About 80 years ago, Indonesia was still colonized by the Dutch, as it was for 350 years. Although the Netherlands was a small kingdom, they outsmarted bigger countries like Indonesia, and took everything from Indonesia for their seafaring enterprises. The Dutch didn’t educate Indonesians, or build the country, like the British did whenever they invaded …
A Broken Window
I went to sleep with my parents because the cold was severe. My father put wood in the stove to try to heat the room a little more. Once the wood caught the flames, I looked up. I saw the shadows on the dark ceiling in the firelight. I went back to sleep. In the …
The Key
One day, I came back home from school and stopped in front of the door to my house. I put my hands into the pocket of my pants to get the key, but only sand smoothly came out of the pocket. Since I had started to go to elementary school, I had had the key …
My Clothes Factory
At the age of eight, every time I was bored at home, I took my clothes that I didn’t like anymore and remade them into clothes for my dolls. I firmly believed that my dolls needed to be well–dressed, but this reason didn’t seem serious enough to my mother. She didn’t like this idea because …
Ballerina Girl
Children have a lot of dreams, and when I was a child, my dream was to be a ballerina, like many young girls. Can you imagine a little girl entering a dance studio for the first time, after she has been imagining it for years? I was only five years old, but I remember that …
My Childhood Village
An inch of time is an inch of gold, but you can’t buy that inch of time with an inch of gold. When I want to catch the past, it doesn’t come back, but it is in my heart. We grow up, get married, have babies, and look after our children, but we always remember …
The Golden Bike
During the weekends of my childhood in La Troncal, Ecuador, I rode my bike with my friend and neighbor, Jackie. My bike was old, black, small, and slow. I always came in last place whenever Jackie and I raced. Even with all my effort to pedal, I never won. Jackie’s bike was a shiny golden …
Almost Adults
I had never left the muddy roads of our village, which was 15 kilometers away from movie theaters and skyscrapers. But one afternoon, as my eight–year–old friends and I stood on our tiptoes and peered through a chink in the curtains of a neighbor’s home, watching a TV show, we saw a trailer for the …