The new old-fashioned school
I'm reluctant to step over the threshold. My heart pounding down my throat, the sweat gouge from my forehead, I can barely breathe. The school building is overwhelming. A maze of corridors, the high walls, the long staircases, the musty smell... Everything is so different from the small friendly newly-built village school I was at before the Christmas holiday. Will I ever be able to find my way here? Will I ever get used to here?
The students do not sit here in groups but in rows. Two school benches with holes for the ink jars, slots for the griffles and other writing materials are put together. Most children have fountain pens, a few work even more old-fashioned crown pins. No ballpoint pen to be found.
“We write here in ink, or from a jar or from a cartridge.”
My ballpoint pens are also filled with ink: blue, black and even red, but that doesn't seem to be allowed here. A friendly master gives me his spare fountain pen, I get a blotting paper.
“Against the stains.”
