I always get excited to see one of our promising youth. However, the moment I said hello it hit me that something was not right. To start with Sami was not supposed to be in the street that hour of the day. It was 11 AM, he was supposed to be at school. “sami, keefak?” I asked. He answered smiling, “good”. “Why aren’t you at school?” He showed me his left hand “well” he said, “I am going to the hospital”. The smile immediately left my face. His finger was in a weird position,  I asked unthinkingly “is it broken?”  He said “yes, my Arabic language teacher broke it!”

Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. I felt the anger forming in my stomach. “why? What happened?” I asked very seriously now. “He was angry at one of my class mates. He asked me to put my book on the desk. I turned my head to remove it from the bag. At that moment I saw my pen at my neighbor’s desk, I took it. Before I blinked, he hit me.”

I looked at sami, who was explaining to me a perfectly disturbing story with an embarrassed smile, feeling that he was the guilty party. It was a critical moment; a moment when one of our youth could learn that he mattered, that what happened to him was, as a matter of fact, important. Sami is the product of an educational system that strips children of their dignity.  Teachers peel off the first layer of children’s dignity because their mothers did not go beyond 6^th grade. They peel off the rest slowly over twelve years of pain because they have the wrong origins or religions, because they come from the wrong backgrounds, because the teachers themselves are not happy with their paycheck, because they are not pleased with their socio economic status.  The result is a broken generation that suffers of severe low self esteem.

I decided that I needed to do something, this was a rare opportunity that was presented to me for a purpose. I took Sami to my office and called the school.

One the supervisors picked up the phone. I told him that I had a child whose finger is broken because his teacher hit him. The supervisor said “oh, yeah, I saw him half an hours ago” I asked “and what did you do about it?” he answered  “I asked him what was wrong and he told me he fell and broke his finger.”  Sami explained to me later that the teacher was around therefore, he was afraid to say anything in front of him.

“Why didn’t you take him to a healthcare center to take a look at the injury?” I asked and he answered “Lady, I have 800 kids, I don’t have the energy or the time to run after each one of them!”

 This sentence summed it all up. It represented everything that is wrong with our educational system, actually it was a manifestation of the era of degradation that our world has sunk into… We are simply too selfish to care. It said it all… I could not remember last time I felt this angry… I decided to do the undoable… I pulled a string.

I called the most important person that I knew, explained to her what the situation was and begged her to do something about it… luckily, my wasta’s heart is in the right place…

To cut a long story short, a few hours later, Sami’s mother called me, she wanted to thank me, now that she was informed of all the details…She told me that the whole staff went to visit the family’s house to drink a cup of coffee… a “atwa” of sorts… Aparently my wasta managed to put them in their places. They felt they needed to do something to redeem themselves… or maybe they simply thought that Sami’s family knows people and therefore should not be touched…

 I laughed!

I am so terribly amused by the whole thing. I wonder what would have happened if I did not talk to sami, I wonder how many Samis are out there in Jordan… I wonder why the system fails…

 Why didn’t I believe in the system? Why did I need to call my wasta?

 Let me briefly mention another story here, hopefully it will shed the light to why we don’t believe in the system.  

A couple of years ago, we had a problem with one of the schools. It had snakes living in the walls. A colleague contacted the Ministry of Education. They sent an angry inspector. She took him around and showed him the size of our predicament… he asked one question.. “did the snake ever bite any child?” he asked…”No” answered a baffled teacher… “Then this is not a priority!”

I would only say  thank God for new media… at least today an inspector would think 5 times before he dares say something this horrid!

These wonderful people came to give the people of Natheef a concert. I was very worried, as the consensus here is that music is 7aram. At the time of the concert the hall filled with people, mostly children… they heard about something called a “concert” and curiosity drove them there.

Like me, these children realized that their lives have been unmusical. I felt a pang in my heart for our children who are deprived of everything, while in Scotland children start learning music at the age of 8.

In our schools music has zero importance… hell, in some schools children are zero important! People are too busy with contradictions… they are still debating whether music is 7aram or halal…. but they don’t mind trashy commercial music… (If it is Arabic, then it is less 7aram for some odd reason)

It truly saddened me to see how happy the children were after the concert. I wondered how we are expected to be creative or to think out of the box… ?

This child asked a very inspiring question: “What do I have to have in order to be able to play music” Donald answered: “ you have it! What would you like to play?” “ The guitar”, Mohammad answered.