A country with a brash but troubled history. I see schoolchildren sitting in rows, wearing those white uniform shirts with scarves tied under their collars. They're reciting the list of provinces. I think it might be a long one.
Past that, I'm not sure. Was this country self-forged by idealists, or hammered into being by history? Maybe it was created by colonialists who still cast invisible shadows on the walls.
Its school system is certainly old-fashioned and determined. Critical thinking is useless without a base of knowledge; this school is all about that base. The thing is, I'm looking at the faces of the kids, and I'm wondering: do they trust it? Do they believe it's worth it to drill all this stuff? Or do they have the sense that they're just being kept busy, and that their ultimate fates will have little to do with what happens here?
It's hot in the classroom. I don't know yet if that's because of the season or the climate. The teacher won't quite let me look at her. It might distract her, and she doesn't want that. She takes her job very seriously. And then there's the fact that if the thread of her concentration snaps, she might run screaming. Just because she takes her job seriously doesn't mean she likes it.
How sad for the children.
I'm smelling something hot and sour, in a good way; something cooking. They must actually make lunch on site here. Maybe the lunch ladies are a bunch of mothers. Rotating groups of them volunteer.
So. The teacher might be fending off despair with every fiber of her being...but lunch will taste good.
The lights are off in the classroom. Sun shines in obliquely.
Those provinces. I can't hear their names yet, but I can see pictures...this is the rocky, unforgiving one; that's the grassy lowland; here's the one with the thin, scrabbly trees, the land marching upward again towards a montane territory, all twists and turns. Here's the forest. There's the coastland.
These children of the rocky ground, what do they think of their neighbors in the other provinces? Do they see them as brothers and sisters? Maybe cousins, a bit more distant? Do they feel competition--"We're better"? Do they feel exclusivity--"WE are the real Suvods, they're not"?
Yeah, I think the country's name is Suvod. Maybe.
It's time for lunch. The kids are lining up at the door to be taken to lunch by an aide. I wish I could have some of what they're going to eat; I have no idea what it is, but it smells good.
The teacher clears her throat. Time for me to leave now.
