“ Barsiisaa Girma’s class. 1999–2007. Walaloo hin du'u. ” (Teacher Girma’s class. 1999–2007. The song does not die.)
But then Chaltu — the silent girl — stood. Her voice cracked like dry earth meeting rain:
“ Bakka hawwiin coomaa dhabe, Bakka rakkoon darbe… ” (Where hunger loses its fat, Where suffering passes by…) walaloo mana barumsaa koo
I froze. The other kids giggled. But Barsiisaa Girma nodded gently. “Continue,” he whispered.
“ Mana barumsaa koo, Si hin irraanfatani. Walaloon kee nannanaa jira. ” (My school, You are not forgotten. Your song still echoes.) “ Barsiisaa Girma’s class
I stood there a long time. Then I took a piece of chalk from my pocket — I always carry one — and beneath those words, I wrote:
One memory haunts me sweetly: The last day of 8th grade. We had no graduation party, no cake. Instead, we gathered under the odaa tree, and Barsiisaa Girma — now old, using a stick — asked us each to sing our own walaloo about the school. ” (Teacher Girma’s class
We cried. Even Barsiisaa Girma wiped his glasses. Today, I am a teacher in a city school — clean windows, projectors, a library full of books. But sometimes, in the middle of a lesson, I close my eyes and I’m back there: the smell of rain on hot cement, the scratch of chalk, the laughter under the odaa tree.
Years passed. I grew taller, the benches grew shorter. Barsiisaa Girma retired. The odaa tree lost a branch in a storm. But the school remained — stubborn, poor, but alive .
One boy sang of the broken bell that rang late. A girl sang of the well where we washed our feet before class. I sang of the window near my desk, where a lizard always watched me solve math.