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Similar to last year the school bus would handle that and after asking around I found the bus that catered to our neighborhood. Unfortunately I failed to inform the driver of my presence, perhaps thinking he already knew, and so the first day back from school after all students had been dropped off, with much amazement he spotted me and turned around asking, “Who are you?”

“I’m new at school. They told me this is the bus I should take.”

“Where do you live?”

“On Mirdamad Boulevard.”

He was beside himself. “Mirdamad? I already covered that area. Why didn’t you say something when we were there?”

I fumbled for an answer. “I thought you were gonna circle around back.”


The ride back to Mirdamad was by no means spent in silence. The entire drive the driver went on and on complaining about my failure to speak up the first time we were in the neighborhood. When we finally arrived at my door step he got out with me, spotted a few random people on the sidewalk and began sharing his sob story with them. 

Thankfully after that first incident our residence was now known to the driver and so there was no repeat of such incidents. That’s not to say there were no incidents period. One morning as I left my book bag outside (to indicate to our bus driver that I would be getting on the bus in case he didn’t see me at the door) and briefly went back in and then out again, I realized my book bag was missing. I couldn’t imagine anyone stealing it but I remembered that I had heard the garbage collector coming by while I was inside. I quickly ran to the end of the street and made a left onto Shangarf street towards the old river where normally the garbage would be delivered and dumped. Sure enough the garbage collector was there, preparing garbage to be burned. Thankfully my book bag wasn’t amongst the items being prepared. He gestured towards a wall and explained, “The book bag was torn so I thought it was garbage but when I lifted it I could tell there were things in it so I put it to the side in case anyone came to claim it.” I retrieved it and made it back in time for the bus.

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