The Teacher

Master Sarr was not a kind man, and this is why we loved him. He did not smile at us. He did not tell us we were clever when we were not. He treated our small, wobbly minds as if they were valuable objects that deserved a careful, honest hand.

He taught mathematics and history and, on Friday afternoons when the roof was too hot to think under, the names of the stars. He had memorised the stars in three languages, and he said this was because the stars did not belong to any one people, and it would be rude to speak to them in only one tongue.

Once a boy in our class laughed at another boy for wearing the same shirt three days in a row. Master Sarr did not raise his voice. He asked the laughing boy to stand up. He asked him to name the four rivers of the region. The boy could name only two. Master Sarr nodded slowly.