MỘT BÀI VĂN CŨ VIẾT VỀ NGÔI TRƯỜNG ĐẦU TIÊN

Ngồi buồn lục lại các file trong máy tính bổng dưng phát hiện ra bài văn tiếng Anh viết về ngôi trường đầu tiên, cảm động quá. Đây là bài tập về nhà theo yêu cầu của giáo viên khi tôi học lớp Anh văn ở trường ngoại ngữ Không Gian vào năm 2004. Tuy là một bài tập nhưng viết rất đúng theo ký ức về ngôi trường xưa của tôi ở làng Trung Lương, xã Hòa Đa (nay Là Hòa Xuân), huyện Hòa Vang, Đà Nẵng cùng với ký ức về người thầy đầu tiên cũng như các bạn bè thân thời đó. Làng tôi cùng với ngôi trường cũ nay không còn nữa, nơi ấy bị san ủi để biến thành một khu du lịch sinh thái trong tương lai. Đăng lại bài nầy để ghi nhớ một kỷ niệm tuyệt đẹp thuở thiếu thời. Dĩ nhiên lời lẻ tiếng Anh chắc chưa chuẫn lắm. (Chỗ nào chưa đúng nhờ các sư phụ biên tập lại giùm). Đây là bài viết thể hiện đỉnh cao tiếng Anh của tôi vì sau đó tôi nghĩ học và trình độ tiếng Anh bây giờ lại trở về như lúc chưa đi học Không Gian.



HUYNH NGOC CHENH
REPLEX 5061
MY FIRST SCHOOL

How can I tell you about a school that the first time I have brought the notebook with me to come there in order to study the first words of my life.
It was a very small school because It was a room of the house of my village’s chief that made used of as the school. At the time, there wasn’t any school in my village. It had only one room but all the pupils of my village from stage 1 to stage 5 had studied there. My two elder sisters were also studying there when I started going school.
My first day at school was so long time ago that I couldn’t remember at all. I only still remembered that on that day I was about 4 or 5 years old, my father had taken me to this school. I had been happy during the time I followed him along the small route from my house to school. Many little white butterflies flew here and there, up and down perhap to welcome me. There were so many butterflies that they had made the air around us white like the milk therefore my route to school became the most beautiful in the world under my eye. I have traveled to most of the provinces in my country, I have also visited to many countries in the world but I have never seen the such beautiful route .
When we entered the gate of the school, suddently I took my father’s shirt and cried loudly because I felt scared. I didn’t remember what I was scared of. Perhaps I thought that my father would leave me staying there alone and if I had let him go back home without me, I would have never seen my mother again. I needed taking back home in order to see my mother. I called my mother. I wanted her to arrive there to rescue me! I also called my sisters who were standing in the yard of the “school” to help me. But nobody came to help me. Even though I objected to moving my father brought me into the class. My first teacher was also my uncle, he touched my head and my back then he said to me soltly that nothing to worry. He took a seat next to my two sisters and told me to sit there. I stopped crying and released my father’s hand to come to the seat. My two sisters welcomed me. And I was very surprised when I saw my best friend Tung sitting behind me. I gradually felt safe and stopped smelting a rat.
Because my teacher was very busy, he appointed an older pupil as my teacher. He was my sister friend, I had been knowing him inasmuch as he often came my house to brush up on the lesson with my sister. After the teacher had ordered him to take care of me, he took my notebook, wrote in the first page three words A,B,C and taught me how to read and told me how to learn by heart .
I spelled A,B,C and observed my teacher teaching the older pupils. He wore a very white shirt, stood in front of the blackboard, explained the lesson to the pupils and sometimes looked at me. I remembered that there were about 20 pupils in this class. They were also all pupils of my village. The oldest one was about 14 years old and perhaps I was the youngest. Because there were many grades in one class, my teacher was only concerned with the higher grades.
After the class, when I was rushing out I met a naked boy standing in front of the door. He’s about the age of mine. Because his father was the school’s boss all pupils there were frightened of him. He pointed at me and said that if I wanted to return here to study I would have to give him a rubber cycle on the following day, or else he would hit me and would not let me entered . My best friend Tuong advised me to obey him. I promised that I would bring a rubber cycle to him on the following day.
At first, I had considered Mai, the naked boy, as my enemy but day by day later, step by step we had played together and we became close friends with each other especially after my best friend Tuong had passed away.
When Mai grown up, he took part in VC and became a brave soldier. He had been fighting against US Army bravely until he died, when he was only aged 18....
By the way, I want to tell about my best friend Tuong who had gone to school together with me only about a few months because he was brought to early grave in 48 years ago.
His house was near mine. Two of us always played together . We went swimming in the river together, climbed on the trees to catch the baby birds, ran ahead the ground to ride the buffaloes and went to school together. Sometime we also ate dinner and slept together.
One day, after I got up, I went to Tuong’s house but I didn’t meet him standing in front of his house to welcome me as usual. I heard somebody crying then I saw a lot of people in his house. I asked myself suprisingly where my friend was being. When I was looking for him, his mother suddenly caught and held me. She wept bitterly and said that Tuong had gone away forever. I came into the house and I saw my best friend lying on the bed where we used to sleep together with a drab cover over his body. I felt scared and burst into loud wails cried. Everybody didn’t allow me to come close to my friend because they were afraid that I would get sick like him. He had got scholera. I had been frightened and felt sad for a long time. I always missed him. We had many beautiful memories together.
Return to my first school. I had been learning there for 9 months, until the new school was set up. They had built a larger school with two rooms. It located beetween the little market and the pagoda in the center of my village.
We left for new place to keep studying. There, we were taught by two teachers. The first one was my uncle, the rest was one of his former pupils. All the children of my village were my uncle’s pupils. He was our first teacher . All of us learned the first word, knew how to read, knew how to write, knew how to solve the mathematics…thanks to him.
Now, my first teacher is very old, he is over 80 years old. He is still living in my little village along with a few former pupils of his who are old too. Sometimes when I came back my hometown, I often visited him. He was very happy when he met me. But I haven’t been visiting him for 3 years now that I was very busy whenever I came back the hometown.
I promise that when I take my family to travel to my hometown next year, not only I but also my family will come to his house to meet him. Besides, I will take my children to my first school so that they can know my memories and how hard situation that I had studied in.
HNC- Jule 26 2004