As a young boy who grew up in the valleys of Cyangugu, digging and grazing cows were my hobbies. Going to school was a miracle I never saw coming my way, but it was always my dream to hold a pen and a book some time in my life. No one in my family was educated either. All I remember was a life of farming day and night.
As a young boy who grew up in the valleys of Cyangugu, digging and grazing cows were my hobbies.
Going to school was a miracle I never saw coming my way, but it was always my dream to hold a pen and a book some time in my life. No one in my family was educated either. All I remember was a life of farming day and night.
As years passed by, God must have thought of fulfilling my dream and it became a reality. One bright morning, I headed to Kigali City to start my first class. My uncle who lived in the town had visited us in the village and then he broke the news to me that he would pay my school fees. Excitement filled my heart. I could not wait for the next day to go with him.
Shockingly, I had never sat in a taxi all my life neither had I seen one before; we always travelled with bicycles in our village. It was one of the reasons I was excited; I was going to travel in a taxi.
Days, months and years passed by and I lived in the city having a great education. I was doing well at school.
When I reached in my senior five, I remember waiting for my end of term exams so that I could make it to senior six. I put on nice cloths like the rest; I looked good and I surely had a great time in the city.
The fact that my English had improved and I was the brightest at our school, my fellow students made so much fun of because I was very weak at speaking slang.
It didn’t matter to me that they laughed so much; I had a lovely girlfriend who liked me so much and taught me some slang to get me going. I felt like I was growing big and bigger day after day. Sandra was the most beautiful girl in my class; additionally she was also the head girl—it all made sense why I had to be proud to be with her.
However, she only liked me because I was a genius in class. She always sat beside me in class even during exams and it was okay.
I still had one problem—I did not know how to use a computer! And she did!
One time during class the teacher had asked me to name any part of a computer, and oh blind me; instead of saying, "mouse”, I slowly and confidently stood up and loudly said, "mouth!”
You can only imagine how loud the class laughed at me. I was so embarrassed!
Sandra did all she could to lift my mood after that because I was terribly sad. A week later what I called a tragedy became worse. Still in the computer class, I don’t know why the computer teacher liked choosing me to demonstrate computer techniques.
I didn’t fancy it at all. "Eric, do you mind volunteering to show us how they shut down a computer?” the teacher would say.
I knew it was simple.
I stood up as everyone gazed at me. I confidently walked to the front of the class where the computer was placed, and then I pressed the power button on the CPU, I smiled as a red light begun to furiously blink. Before it could even go off the class burst out laughing at me. Sandra became so angry at me because I had embarrassed her in front of everyone!
It was the last time I heard from her; she had dumped me because I was so computer illiterate.