Roji managed to pass the class four examination this year. Rajia was very happy because she would finally get to cross the primary school and study in a middle school. In the primary school, she had grown tired of walking back and forth every single day. She thought to herself that now she would be able to ride a bicycle to school, which made her even happier. This was because the middle school was located near the Amteka market. The distance from her home to the middle school was about five kilometers. Walking that distance was not easy. No matter what, her father thought to himself that he would have to buy a bicycle for Roji.
Today, as soon as the results of the final examination for class four were announced and it was known that she had passed, Roji became incredibly happy. Out of happiness, her father decided they would eat a chicken, so he slaughtered a big rooster that they had raised. The rooster used to sleep right near Roji’s head. Roji loved the rooster very much. She had no desire to see it slaughtered. As her father slaughtered it, Roji secretly kept crying. She didn’t stay there out of anger and sorrow, and instead locked herself inside the room.
Her mother kept knocking on the door, trying to comfort and calm Roji.
“We were trying to celebrate your success in passing class four. Why do you have to be sad? Stop it, child, you shouldn’t be sad like this.”
Roji, crying from inside the house, replied back:
“Whenever a bird is slaughtered, it is always mine that gets slaughtered! Even when guests come, they slaughter mine! Why couldn’t they slaughter a younger sibling’s (bird)… You all do not love me.”
The mother replied back:
“The younger ones aren’t big enough yet. This time, when we eat chicken, we will only eat the younger ones, okay? Stop it now, come and eat your rice. Why wouldn’t we love you, your father loves you the most.”
Roji was saying:
“Father doesn’t love me at all. He just talks and says ‘I love you’ every single day.”
The mother said:
“Why wouldn’t he, he loves you the most of all.”
“I won’t eat. Since they slaughtered my rooster, they will have to buy me a frock (dress) as compensation.”
The mother kept thinking about what she could say to comfort her and how she could get her to eat rice. She felt that they had inadvertently committed a huge mistake. Looking at her face, she gently said:
“It would have been better if they had slaughtered a bird from your share.”
The mother, touching Roji, said:
“Alright, it’s okay. This coming Monday, I will go to the Amteka market and buy a frock for you. What kind of frock do you want? Do you want one with flowers like Nijira’s?”
Comforting her this way, the mother finally managed to get Rajia to eat her rice. While she was eating, the mother kept speaking to her very softly and tenderly.
“Stop throwing a tantrum like this. You still have plenty of chickens. Next time we eat chicken, we will definitely eat the younger sibling’s. Yours have grown quite big anyway.”
Roji had once bought a small chick for one rupee using the money she earned from peeling betel nuts at the village wealthy-man Deobar’s house, showing others her work, and washing betel leaves for the village folks. Roji’s mother had bought that one-rupee chick from the Amteka market and brought it home. Growing up from that, it had now become a large breeding hen. The hen was excellent at hatching and raising chicks. It could hatch nearly twenty chicks at a single time. It took very good care of them. That is how Roji’s chickens had multiplied into nearly thirty by now. The mother hen, named by Roji since it was small, produced chicks that turned out very well. The chicks hatched by Roji’s younger brother Alangbar’s hen, however, did not turn out as well. Look, its mother takes good care of them. Sometimes kites, sometimes jackals, and mongoose from the bamboo groves keep snatching them away. The chicks hatched by their own hens also sometimes get sick with various diseases, like eye blindness, and die.
After having dinner in the evening, everyone went to sleep. Roji was immensely happy thinking about finally getting to study at the middle school. The school was right near the Amteka market. She thought to herself that from time to time, if she couldn’t get money from her mother, she could ask her father for a rupee or two, and when she went to school, she could stop by the market to eat sweets. She secretly thought that even if her father didn’t give her a rupee or two when asked, she would just take it from under his pillow.
Roji’s mother and father were also very happy. Her mother deeply desired to make her daughter highly educated. There was no educated woman in the village. A few young men from the village had gone to study in college. Seeing them, the village people also felt inspired to make their own children like them. Rwisumwi felt the most inspired of all.
Taking their examples, she kept encouraging Roji to put her heart into her studies. She kept motivating her by saying that if she studied well, she would get to go to the town to study in college, see the town, travel to distant places, get a big job, and be able to buy and drive cars. Roji, too, as she grew older, started developing a keen interest in studying on her own.
As soon as the new academic year began, Roji started going to the middle school. Even though her father had hoped to buy her a brand new ladies’ bicycle, he could not afford to buy one. Time and again, Roji kept asking for a new bicycle. She had even said that if she couldn’t get a new one, an old, used one would do, but still, her father could not buy it for her.
For three years, Roji had to continue going to school by walking a distance of five kilometers from her home to the school. Sometimes she found companions along the way, and sometimes she had to walk all alone from home. Studying through such immense hardships, Roji managed to pass and complete her middle school education as well. Her younger brother Alangbar also reached class four this year.
Alongbar’s annual examination was over. Their scores were Nerswn and another named Dengkhw. Nerswn reached class three. Dengkhw reached class one.
Only when she reached high school did her father manage to buy a second-hand, old ladies’ bicycle for Roji from someone else. Riding that, Roji began commuting back and forth to the high school every day. Because the family’s financial condition wasn’t good, they fell into financial difficulties from time to time. Sometimes, they couldn’t buy books for their daughter at the right time, nor could they buy paper and pens on time. Even when needed, Roji had to face hardships due to the lack of proper materials. For two or three of Roji’s exams, she had to keep wearing the same single pair of pants and frock. There was no chance of getting new pants and frocks. Rwisumwi, as much as she was capable…
…putting aside the thought of buying new ones, she would stitch up the old, torn clothes with a needle and thread to make them wearable, and give them to her to wear. Wearing those same clothes, the children would go to school. From time to time, they would play with village friends along the winding village paths, paddy fields, and open grounds. During the winter season, they played in the dust of the village roads and the dry crop fields. During the rainy season, they played in the mud and near the banks of the river streams. They found immense joy in playing like this. In this manner, they kept spending their days.
No matter what, the mother was deeply intent on educating her children. Even if she couldn’t teach them herself, she sent her children to school as soon as it was time. She would occasionally ask their friends or the village people whether they had reached school or not. From time to time, she would even walk along the path toward the school just to check on them.
Because Rwisumwi was so deeply determined to educate her children by any means possible, she started collecting various wild vegetables and greens from the garden to go and sell them at the roadside market. Sometimes she brought and sold fiddlehead ferns (dingkhia), wild spinach (khipi bendwng), taro flowers (thaso bibar), taro roots (thaso athing), taro stems (thaso bithrai), and sometimes even mushrooms gathered from the forests. Whenever possible, she also sold chicken eggs, duck eggs, and reared goats and pigs. By selling these things, she spent the money on buying books, notebooks, pens, and pencils for her children. With that money, she would also buy them pants and frocks from time to time.