My True Story: The Boy Who Worked in a Quarry to Pay for School

Chapter 1: The Silent Classroom

The teacher’s chalk scraped against the board—a rhythmic, confident sound that signaled a lesson I was desperate to capture. Around me, the room was filled with the frantic scratching of pens against paper and the crisp sound of pages turning. But my desk remained a desert of silence.
As the first-born child of parents who had never been given the gift of an education, I carried their hopes on my shoulders, yet my hands were empty. I sat straight, my eyes fixed on the board, trying to carve the words into my memory because I had no notebook to hold them. While other children gripped their colorful pens and flipped through glossy textbooks, I sat with my hands tucked under my thighs, hiding the fact that I didn't even have a pencil.

The loudest part of the day wasn't the lecture; it was the midday bell. When the chime rang for break, the classroom transformed into a chorus of rustling lunch bags and the sweet scent of home-cooked food. As my classmates ran toward the sunlight and their snacks, I stayed in my seat, feeling the hollow ache in my stomach that matched the emptiness of my desk. I wasn't just hungry for food; I was hungry for the tools to change my destiny.