Day 17 - Mohamad´s First Day At School - November 30th

Sunday night I started my second school cone. This time for Mohamad who was a few years older than Diar, he was 14 years old. I decided to make him the exact same school cone. All Rasoul children are precious to me and regardless of their age, I wanted them to receive the same school cone. Once a child, always a child. :)

There I was, rolling and cutting, sticking the cardboard together, adding some orange and yellow crepe paper as well as writing Mohamad´s name on the cardboard with a golden pen. I was excited and joyful about his first day at school.

When I was finally done tinkering the school cone, I started to fill it with candy when I suddenly realized that I did not have enough of it. I was mortified. I stared at the immense school cone for a while and there was way too much space left.

So far I had been so well organized even though my schedule was getting tighter, my to do list was  getting longer and the responsibilities heavier. This lack of candies was like a slap in my face. How on earth could I forget to buy more candy for Mohamad? I felt awful. I had a new pencil case for him too, filled with pens and yet I was beating myself up over tha lack of candies. I called my friend Agnes who lives nearby and asked her if she had some spare candy and she did. She saved me that night. I ran to her house in my sweatpants and ran back to my apartment to fill the school cone with candies. I was happy when it was filled all the way to the top.

I picked up the mother, Shamse, and Mohamad at 07:45am. Abdelaziz, the father, had already left to drop off the youngest, Diar, at school. I proudly handed the school cone to Mohamad who was thrilled. He laughed. I really wish I could have told him the story with the lack of candies but I could not. It was such a pity to not be able to talk to each other.

On our way to school, we bumped into Abdelaziz who was already on his way back from school. He decided to walk with us to school and to drop off Mohamad. Upon arrival, I took a picture of Mohamad with the school cone in front of the entrance of the school. Same procedure as with Diar. But Mohamad did not want to carry the cone in front of the school especially not for a picture. So he gave it to his father who is also on the picture. I kept handing him the cone for the picture and the moment I turned around, he would give it to his father. I started to enjoy to pull his leg with the school cone. He was turning red like a tomato. We had a great laugh. I had to stop at some point as I did not want him to be late for class. We walked upstairs to the principal´s office. I explained to Mohamad that he needed to excel at school because school was the stepping stone to a better future. The principal handed me the timetable before we were introduced to the headmaster who asked Mohamad to go with him.

I stayed a little longer and went through the timetable with the principal as I did not understand any of the Austrian abbreviations. I myself went to a French school and that was a very different school system. She was kind enough to sit with me and explained everything patiently even though her phone kept ringing and people would walk in with questions every other minute. In addition to regular school hours, both children would attend German courses after school in a different institution in the second district.

Shamse and Abdelaziz were able to find their way from home to school and back. But now I had to show them where to pick up the children after the German course as I was unable to pick them up due to my workschedule. I used Google maps and took a screenshot that I sent Shamse and kept my fingers crossed. As I never heard of any problems, not from school nor from Shamse, my guess was that everything turned out just fine.

Two out of three children were in school now and that was the most important task on my to do list.

And here´s the picture of Mohamad with his father.