RESTO-SQUAD

BEN - GX
 © COPYRIGHTS ARE RESERVED by BEN-GX®

Actually it’s not; you can steal it if you want. I don’t even mind that. 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

I’m all thankful and grateful to God first.

And then, I’d like to thank –especially- my friend “M’hamed” for being
in my life. He had definitely made it happier, funnier, sillier, more
adventurous, and worse in a good way though. 

I’d also like to thank my squads:

 The Resto-Squad, “Benz”, “JB”, “Grampa”, and “Pato”.

 The Losers-Squad, “Wiwi”, “Meii”, “Jane”, “Yussef”, and “Aicha”.
 The Gang-Squad, “Khalil”, “Ali”, “Metissage”, “Ahmed”, and
“Bounena”.

Also, I’d like to thank my other squads.  Yeah! I have many
memberships. 

Special gratitude goes to “ebc” and “The Hub” staffs. 

In general, I’d like to thank all my teachers, classmates (especially the

“Danone” buyers), virtual friends, and everyone for being a part of an
amazing part of my life. 
 AUTHOR’S NOTE:

I basically wrote this book for two main reasons:

 There are some precious moments and memories that should

not be left for oblivion.

 Just to show the reality of education here in Mauritania. In other

words, how corrupted some of students are, how corrupted
some of teachers are, and how corrupted education is, which
probably leads to how corrupted the country is, which also
probably leads to how corrupted the continent is, which also
might lead to how corrupted the whole planet is. 

I also wrote this book in simple and easy English because:

 I’m not that good at English. 

 You’re not that good at it too.  (You’re excluded from this

statement, good at English people). 

 I wanted everyone to be able to read it, to understand it, and to

laugh at it. 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 Cover page

 Copyrights page

 Acknowledgment

 Author’s note

 Table of contents 

 Blank page, literally. 

 Chapter one: In Zouerate…………………………………………...page 07

 Chapter two: High school…………………………………………...page 17

 Chapter three: At the University of NKTT…………………..page 46

 Chapter four: Teachers………………………………………………page 66

 Chapter five: Cheating………………………………………………..page 85

 Chapter six: ebc & the hub……………………………………….…page 112

 Chapter seven: Facebook…………………………………………...page 130

 The end

 Glossary

 A blank page with only my fabulous signature. 

 Back cover page

 RESTO-SQUAD

CHAPTER NE

“IN ZOUERATE”

“School is the well of memories”…..

Please, don’t bother yourself rewinding your thoughts in your
head trying to reminisce where you have seen or heard of this
expression before because I’ve just come up with it, so…   
It is very normal that we make most of our memories in school.
Memories we share with others, memories that are unforgettable,
sweet, bitter, joyful and bleak. Most of you have shared theirs with me,
now, let me share mine with you. 

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When I was a little kid, I lived in “Zouerate”. And just like little
kids in my days, I was either out in the streets playing with my friends,
or at home watching TV. I used to go out in midday with absolute
disregard for the sun and the hot weather. My purpose was to play
soccer with my friends until the sun sets, then, I go back home with
few kilos of dust and dirt all over my body and my clothes, and
sometimes with few scratches and wounds as well. And with all the
tiredness I held over my shoulders, I just fell asleep, and not just to get
some rest, but also in order to wake up early, before the dawn, to
watch my favorite superhero “Batman” at 3 am to be more precise.
Every day, at 3 am, I used to wake up and sneak out to turn the TV on,
and watch cartoons until 6 am, three hours of cartoons daily. Most of
the days, every morning, I go to the bakery, bring some hot bread,
have my breakfast and do my housework, then go out with friends….
Life was just beautiful. My daily schedule was the same routine but it
was also idealistic. It was cool and full of happiness, until that day
when my father took me to school.  And if there is anything
common in cartoons it would be the hatred for school, they always
hate it for some reason, I don’t exactly know why, but they just do.

School number 6; it was 20 minutes away, by feet of course.

I still remember the day I came to class for the first time, and it was a
little bit awkward. I did not know anyone, and no one knew me, which
was very logic and normal by the way.  I was the shy type, sort of, I

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was not an outgoing kid, and I was always silent. However, I managed
to make some friends, and I managed to blend in. There was where I
met my friend “JB”. We were not that close back then, but we knew
each other. Unfortunately, “JB” transferred to another school after the
first year. He was one of few I had the privilege to meet. Days went by,
very fast, and then, along the way, I met my dear friend “Yehdhih”. He
was the best student in the class, and so was I. We were in the same
year, but we’ve never been in the same class until 6th grade. He was the
best in one class, and I was the best in the other one. But that (best) is
not what it looks like.  Like, he was really a good student; he was
always the first in his class. I was also the first in my class, but the only
difference between us was that he outran his classmates, he was
better than them, to put it simply. While I was nothing near of that, I
was not that good, probably just not good, but my classmates were
way much worse off than me. That was how I managed being the first
in my class. 

In the 5th grade, I joined my friend and neighbor “Sidi feet”

who failed to pass that year. He lived near my house. We used to go to
school together, and we’d been through many adventures. For
instance, we were a walking nightmare for every living and breathing
goat, yes, I said goat.  Every day, on our way to school, we used to
throw rocks straight at any goat we found in and on our way to school.
I bet so many goats hated us back then.  Add to that, that once we
reach school, and before the class starts, we walk into every class

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collecting what was left of chalks from all the classes, and then we put
it in a candy jar. We store it there, we don’t really use it, we just keep it
there, and we take it home. We managed to fill many jars. And we used
to repeat the same thing the very following day. Basically that was
what we do every time. You’re probably still wondering why my friend
is called “Sidi feet”. Well, as his name indicates, we used to call him
that because he had big feet, and every time he hits the ball it goes
beyond the horizon, metaphorically speaking of course.  But it
does go so far though, and he was very fast too. And speaking of “fast”,
I remember there was a girl with us, her name was “Mentou”, and she
used to outrun us the boys in “Running” tests. Though she’s very
different nowadays, and so are all of us. They say “Old days were
good”, well, I say old days are still good. Primary school was a lot of
fun; I passed it with good reputation and good grades. 

Here was when I began Middle School, and it was where I met
“Benz”. He lived near my house, one road between us, all the time, but
I’ve never seen him or met him before.  In our first year in middle
school, my hatred for school expanded to some extent. However,
having great friends -giving me the will and desire to come to school
every day- limited that expansion of that hatred to some extent. 
“Benz” and I had another friend; his name was “Bullah”. We used to go
to his house and play video-games, or more accurately, (SEGA).  But
in the class, “Bullah” was a good student, unlike “Benz” and me. 

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My favorite seat was in the middle of the third row, while “Benz’s”
favorite seat was in the back row, very back, like, the last desk in the
back where the sun doesn’t shine.  That was his comfort zone. 
His main interest was being as far as possible from the teacher’s desk.
Our class was divided into three sub-classes (A1, A2, and A3). One
time, the A1 class, their teacher didn’t come that day, so they joined us,
the A3 class; our teacher hosted a competition between both classes. 
It goes like this:

[The teacher chooses a text, and every class will have one of them to
represent his or her class in the competition, which is about “Fast-
Reading.]

“Mohamed’ Salek” represented our class, I remember I raised my hand

because I was really a fast reader, but the teacher chose him. And that
was maybe because he was the best in our class. Unfortunately, we
were defeated by the other class, and particularly by my neighbor
“Neya”, she was really good, and we were impressed by her highly
performed performance. Anyway, we managed to get over and move
on after that defeat, as well as passing the first year with good grades
and good reputation. 

At the beginning of the second year, “Benz” was in another

sub-class, though we kept in touch with each other. I attended the
classes for few weeks; then I got sick for about three to four weeks. 

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I do remember why I was sick now, but I didn’t remember that back
then. I went to the hospital, and the doctor asked me:

“How do you feel now?”

“I feel dizzy, with a sharp headache” I replied.

“How did you get this, did you hit your head or something?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so, I don’t remember hitting my head” I replied.

“Okay! You probably just don’t eat or drink enough” he suggested.

I went with that, though it wasn’t really the reason, because after few
days I remembered that I did hit my head, so hard.  I used to put a
pillow against the wall, and lean on it while watching TV. And one
time, I came back running so I don’t miss a scene from a movie, I don’t
remember what movie it was anymore. I leaned on the pillow, quickly,
but instead of landing my head on it, it landed on the wall, BM!!
Two seconds passed and nothing happened, and then suddenly,
everything was spinning around me. It went away after few minutes,
but it came back after few days, and that was when I went to the
hospital. Because of how hard the hit was, I forgot that I hit my head in
the first place.

I recovered, then I came back to school, but I was not the same as I left.
I came back with absolute zero intention to study. I was becoming less
and less interested in courses. The passion for study was fading away,
it was running out. I started wearing red clothes, and I switched my

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place in the classroom. I went back to “Benz’s” place, yes, in the very
back where the sun doesn’t shine.  I stopped writing lessons, or
even listening to the teacher’s lectures. Then was when I decided to
learn how to draw, and I started using my copybooks for drawing. But
it wasn’t just me, my friends “Bembary” and “Rona” were there too. We
all used to have our copybooks with us and draw. We used to compete
who could draw better. The thing was that they both stopped drawing
after a while, but I kept practicing and practicing over and over and
over again. I drew every day, in every class, almost all the time. 
I improved my drawing skills, therefore my classmates used to bring
me their copybooks to draw for them whenever we had a map to draw
in geography class, and a skeleton or some biological stuff in the
science class. Eventually, with all the careless I had for studying, I
managed to pass to the third year. 

The third year was so much fun; I reunited with my friend

“Yehdhih”. We both were into “Anime”, and I remember his favorite
one was “one piece” and mine was “YU-GI-OH!”. “Yehdhih” printed out
pictures of YU-GI-OH cards; we used to play them in my house, during
recess, and other times in other places.  His cards were so small in
size, and so many of them, but so small and in black and white. After a
while, I decided to draw my own version of them. That way, we could
have them colored. Therefore, I was walking in the streets collecting
“Mauritel” cards, and I used to draw a card and pin it to “Mauritel”

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card to give it some solidity. I collected so many “Mauritel” cards, and I

used to watch “YU-GI-OH!” show on TV every day, on “MBC3”. Every
time they air it, I bring my drawing tools and get ready to draw. And
while I was watching it, I was holding the remote control in my hand
with my thumb on the “Pause” button waiting for the scene where a
card would show up, so I press the “Pause” button and draw that card.
I usually spend ten to fifteen minutes just to draw and color one card.
This way, every day, I managed to draw nearly 100 cards, and then I
discovered the internet, late.  So, I printed out pictures of all the
cards I wanted to draw. Eventually, I drew nearly 300 cards, and I still
have them, all of them. 

Back to school, the third year went well, and I managed to pass it
despite all the spitefulness I had for school. 

The 4th grade and final year of middle school; I came to class
wearing red, as usual. But this time the name “Ben GX” is written on
the back of my t-shirt, I wrote it with a marker.    The most
common question I still get to these days is how did I come up with
that name? Well, we boys always invent nicknames for friends, and the
most common and used nicknames were the names of famous football
players, such as Messi, Ronaldo, Robben, Ronaldinho, Totti, and so on...
I was in a Football team with my friends, and we used to wear white t-
shirts. And since I was the one with a marker, I was the one to write

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numbers and names on them. They gave me number 10, but I wasn’t a
fan of football back then. I didn’t want to write a famous footballer’s
name on my t-shirt. I wanted to be different. I wanted to do something
new, something off the chain. So, I wrote the name “BEN” above the
number “10”. It looked like this “BEN 10” referring to the animated
show. And since then my friends started calling me “BEN”. The “GX” is
irrelevant to cars unlike as most of people thought. It came from the
animated sequel of “YU-GI-OH!”, it was called “YU-GI-GX”. They said it
stood for “Generation neXt”. But I didn’t like it for what it stood for; I
liked it for its ring in my ear. That was how I came up with my
nickname. 

Back to class again, I remember one day I was sitting in the

second row and in front of me was this guy, “M’hamed” and next to him
“Abdallahi”, usually “Abdi” sits with them, but he wasn’t there, he was
in the other sub-class. “M’hamed” looked back at me and asked me to
come and sit with them. I was sitting alone, so I went and sat with
them. And that was the start of our eternal friendship. 
He was a very nippy guy, and he acted above his age. You’d think he
was just reliving again, like he had experienced life before. He had his
own way of seeing things and life, and observing events around him.
He changed my life, of course to good, in a good bad way though. 
We were the only people in the class who were still watching “anime”.
“M’hamed, Yehdhih, Abdallahi, and me”; we used to gather at
“M’hamed’s” house to play “YU-GI-OH” cards game with “Yehdhih’s”

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cards and the cards I drew. Other times, we played basketball. 

“M’hamed’s” house was like the base for our gang, it was like our lair,
our den, or call it what you want. 

In the classroom, we had a classmate, a girl named “Ayicha”. she was

a friend of my two neighbors “Neya and Houda”. And they were close
friends. “Ayicha” was not like them, they were fun, and she wasn’t. Or
at least not always; I didn’t know what her problem was with
“M’hamed” and I. Every time we tell a joke, or try to be funny, she
shows up out of nowhere with her pretty chocolate face and sulkily
says “it didn’t work out”.  I mean, you can’t look at me for 10
seconds without bursting in laughter.  But we just couldn’t make
her laugh, not even once. She murdered the sense of humor we
possessed, literally. She had a face made of stones, I had to tell you. 

At the end of that year, we were about to do our national exam

(Brevet), and I usually don’t study for the exam. I just challenge myself
and somehow I end up passing it. That was me, “M’hamed” wasn’t. He
was a very good student, and he revised his lessons. Let’s just say he
wasn’t like me.  There was that time when he tricked me to
revise with him the day before (Brevet), and I don’t know how I fell for
that, but I revised with him, and guess what, I failed in the (Brevet). 
Fortunately, I passed the regular exam, so I managed to pass to high
school. Oh! I almost forgot, “M’hamed’’ failed too.  Yeah, ironically.
  

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CHAPTER TW

“HIGH SCHL”

Even though we managed to pass to High School, we weren’t

excited for it. The first year was a bit different, “M’hamed” who used to
be the good student, quit, yes, he quit being a good student and joined
his friend, referring to myself of course.  And ironically, “Benz”
went from the laziest student among us, to the soberly serious student.
He even changed his desk, and began to sit in the front row. 

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I never thought I’d live to see that.  I mean, “Benz” who used to
“live” in the very back row where the sun doesn’t shine is now sitting
in the front row and face to face with the teacher, and where the sun
shines actually.  “Benz” and I were in the same class, but
“M’hamed” was in the other sub-class. I used to meet with him during
the break to get some stuff to eat.  It was a great year though; I met
many good people that year, for instance “Selkou, Bahah, Med Babe,
Mohameden (coach), Semah Choumad, Kader, Abdlvetah, Khadijetou
Wane, “Meyloo”, “Bouya Ahmed”, and so many others”. Then I passed
to the second year (6A).

(6A), that was perhaps the messiest year I went through. 
So many events happened then. Like I said before, I hated school.
“M’hamed” hadn’t before, but he did at that time and even more than I
did. At that time, we lost the atom of passion we had for study. We
used to skip some classes and go to “M’hamed’s” house and play video-
games (Play-station 2). Sometimes, only me and him, other times
“Pélé” joined us.  We did that a lot because most of the classes
were boring to death. But not all of them though, for instance, we used
to joke around in some courses just to entertain ourselves because of
the suffocating atmosphere in the classroom. There was that one time
when I missed a test, it was (Physics), and guess what, I sucked at it. 
The teacher came the following class with the test results, and he
distributed them. All the students got theirs except for me, which was
very normal by the way, I mean, I didn’t do the test after all. 

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“I ain’t going down like this, hell no…” I said in my head. 

I mean, I was the only one who got zero in that test; I just couldn’t stop
myself from trying to change that situation. It was disastrous. 

So, I inhaled a fair amount of oxygen, inflated my chest, put a fair

amount of audacity all over my face, and then headed toward the
teacher.

“Excuse me sir, where is my paper?” I asked with audacity.

“What…? You didn’t get yours?” he surprisingly replied.

“No, sir, I didn’t get mine” I replied with double audacity.

“That’s really weird, let me check my bag” he said.

He checked his bag while I stood there with a certainty that he wasn’t
going to find it because it didn’t exist in the first place. 

“I couldn’t find it here, and I’m sure I didn’t leave it at home, so… I
probably lost it somehow somewhere…” he explained.

“But, what do you think you’d have had in the test?” he added.

“Well, I think I’d have had 10 points at least, I mean… you said it
yourself, the test was very easy.” I said with triple audacity and a little
bit of optimism. 

“Okay!... I guess there’s no other way to fix this” he said.

“Oh! Thank God he didn’t make me repeat the test” I said in my head.

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“Thank you sir” I said, with appreciation. .

At the end of the day, I went home with a very wide smile and 10
points in physics. That was the only time I cheated in school in my
whole life. 

“M’hamed” and I were so super lazy. We had no copybooks.

Actually, we didn’t buy them in the first place.  I had a backpack, but
not for school purposes.  We used to pass by the market on our way
to school, and there was where my backpack was important. We used
to buy bread, milk, and peanuts. Then we put all of them inside my
backpack, and once we get to school, we eat all of that during the first
course.  Also, there was a beggar we used to pass by on our way to
school, I used to give him 100 um, everyday on my way to school, even
though “M’hamed” and “Pe’le’” used to beg me to give it to them
instead. After few weeks, we passed by the same beggar on our way to
school, and we caught him smoking (Marlboro).  I said “That’s
not what I thought asking for charity is for”. “M’hamed” and “Pélé”
bursting in laughter said “That’s what you get, we asked you for it, plus
we wouldn’t buy cigarettes with it” . Eventually, I stopped giving it
to that beggar, and I didn’t give it to my friends either.  I started
giving it to another beggar. 

Back to school again, one major setback “M’hamed” and I had in

high school was French classes. We sucked at French, and in tests we
only managed to solve that usual question, which was giving a title to

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the text. It was also on two points only, and if that question was not
involved in the test, well, we get zeroes.  However, we managed to
come up with certain techniques in order to reach 4 to 5 points in
French.  For instance, the answer for the first question is 95% in the
first line of the text.  Also, we used to search for the keywords in the
question and once we find them in the text, we write from there to the
end of that sentence, which we usually know by reaching a period. 
Speaking of French, there was that one time where the teacher gave us
our test results, they were catastrophic, as usual. And one of our
classmates was crying because she couldn’t get a good grade in that
test. After a long argument she had with the teacher, I was fed up with
both.  So I suggested this:

“Excuse me sir, would you please give her my points so she stop
crying” I suggested.

“And how many points did you get in the test” said the teacher, with a
very certain voice that I didn’t get many. 

“I got 4 points, sir” I said, proudly. .

The whole class and the teacher laughed at me, in fact, I even laughed
at myself with them.  At the end of that day, I went from 4 points
to a zero in French. Because the teacher did take my four precious
points and gave them to that girl, she managed to pass that test.
Therefore, she immediately cut the drama, and I went home -with a
humongous zero- to my mama. 

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Our French teacher was “Mr. Dja Bockar”. I’m not sure about the
spelling though.  Anyway, he was a very strict teacher, and he had his
own way of teaching. I remember he had few rules too such as:

- You come on time or you can’t get in.

- You can’t speak any language but French in his presence.
- No interruptions while he is lecturing or explaining.
- You will not be sent out when what you want is to be sent out. 

One time, “M’hamed” and I broke the second and the third rule. We
interrupted him while he was lecturing, and we didn’t speak French
for sure. He had some steps to go through whenever any of his rules
got broken. For instance, when we broke his rules, he snapped!  And
went outside for a minute; smoked a cigarette, and came back. Then
he cleaned the board, and put the duster on his desk. After that, he
stood in front of us and began lecturing about the importance of the
French language, its values, and stuff like that.  The best thing about
all of that was that we didn’t have to write anything that day. 
Another time, he gave us an assignment and many of us didn’t do it.
We were involved of course.  So, he was upset and sent us all out. 
All the students brought their parents as a medium so they could get in
the classroom. “M’hamed” and I didn’t even tell our parents about it. 
I mean, there was no way we were going to tell them about it. 
At the end of the day, we were the only students left that we didn’t
bring our parents. Therefore, he didn’t let us in. However we came
back class after class, day after day, but he didn’t let us in. 

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Eventually, he gave up, and submitted himself to the fact that we were
never going to tell our parents about it, let alone bringing them. 
We went in, and life went on.  But he didn’t forget about it.  There
was that one time when he wrote some questions on the board, and
asked us to answer them. But not as usual, no, not in a paper or a
copybook, rather it was done on the board. It was like this:

{You go and answer one of the questions, then you get the right to
choose any student to go next} 

Students took it as a shot of vengeance. Each one of them chose who

despised the most.  I don’t remember who went first, or who chose
“Benz” to go next. But I do remember when “Benz” went to the board,
wrote his answer, and pointed to “Khadjetou Wane” to go next. They
were rivals and the best in our class too.  On the other hand, there
were “M’hamed” and I. We were very nice and respectful with
everyone, therefore, nobody chose us to go to the board. But the
teacher wasn’t delighted with that. I guess his main reason of doing
such activity was to drag me and “M’hamed” to embarrass us in front
of the whole class.  And since nobody chose us, this happened:

“Hey! You” Said the teacher.

I took a glance at the corner of my right eye to see his finger pointed
straight forward at me. 

“Oh! Me?” I reacted.

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“Yes, you number 10, go to do the next question” he ordered.

“But, sir, nobody has chosen me yet” I said.

“Well, I just did, so, go ahead” He evilly said, with a devious smile on
his face. 

“Why it has always to be me” I said, grumblingly. 

At the end of the day, I went to do that question, and I wrote a wrong
answer like I’d always done.  I was so super careless at that time.
Plus, I didn’t even know what the question was about. All I wanted was
to go back to my seat. I was a gentleman; I didn’t choose anyone to go
next, but that didn’t prevent the teacher from choosing “M’hamed” to
go next.  We both sucked at French. However, I could write wrong
answers, I mean at least I could write something, while “M’hamed”
couldn’t.  When the teacher sent him to the board, he just stood
there and faced us, then he kept staring at the teacher and the teacher
also kept staring at “M’hamed”.  It was only for 20 to 30 seconds,
but the class was very silent during those seconds. You’d swear they
were in a staring competition, for none of them blinked. It was
legendary.  I suddenly broke that silence and staring saying:

“Dude! Write (…etc) and go back to your seat”.

They blinked, and the whole class bursted in laughter. 

Eventually, the teacher sent him back to his seat. Like I said, that day
was legendary. 

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There was that one time when we had an oral test in French.
And yes, with the same teacher.  It went like this:

{He gives you a book, and tells you to open it on a random page, and
you read that page in silence for five minutes. And then he asks you
some questions that are relevant to the content of that page.}

It was my turn, and I opened the book, but I didn’t bother myself
reading anything. Why? Because I was so super sure I wouldn’t
understand anything anyway. So, I just sat there waiting for my five
minutes to run out. And they did. Then, it was time for questions. The
teacher asked me the first question, I don’t remember what it was, but
I do remember I didn’t answer it, correctly. He asked me again, and I
answered with something I’m very sure it was not the correct answer.
But I was so super careless. I didn’t bother myself reading what was in
that page, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to give any sort of right
answers, but I answered anyway. All I wanted was to finish the test as
fast as possible, and just go back to my seat. That was me. 
“M’hamed” went next, he did the same. He just sat there waiting for his
five minutes to run out. I was able to give answers even though they
were all wrong. Well, “M’hamed” wasn’t able to give any sort of
answers, right or wrong.  I was sitting near him; I guess one desk was
between us. It was the time for questions. The teacher asked him the
first question, and “M’hamed” said nothing. But what are friends for?


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“Say you don’t know” I whispered, out loud. 

“I don’t know {je ne sais pas}” “M’hamed” told the teacher. 

The teacher looked at him with a very dissatisfaction expression on

his face, just like the (MEH) emoji you’re familiar with. Then, he asked
him a second question.

“Say pass” I whispered, less loudly. 

“Pass (passons { la question suivante)” He told the teacher.

The teacher wasn’t happy at all, not even a bit… Then he asked him a
third question.

“Say jump” I whispered. 

“Jump (Sauter { la question suivante)” He told the teacher.

The teacher was angry, disappointed, frustrated, and furious. He was a

mixture of contradicted emotions to put it simply.  However, he
asked him a forth question.

“Say you know nothing” I whispered. 

“I know nothing (Je ne connais rien)” he told the teacher. 

The teacher was fed up,  and had enough of us,  but he asked him
one more last question though. 

“Sorry dude, my French repertoire is empty” I whispered. 

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“M’hamed” said nothing, and I ran out of French words.  I had

nothing else to say.  After all, the teacher sent “M’hamed” back to
his seat. 

Moving forward, “M’hamed” got expelled. I don’t think you

heard me. I said “M’hamed” got expelled. Now, take ten seconds to
laugh.  I don’t remember why exactly? But it wasn’t something
major. I guess he was skipping that class when the teacher shouted at
him -as he was walking away- to come back to class. But he just kept
walking away. The very following day, he was expelled. He went home
and told his parents that he was expelled, and they were positively
supportive for him. He wanted to drop out so long ago anyway, so it
wasn’t something that would affect him in any sort of a bad way.
Rather, he was very pleased and happy with the happening.  He got
a whole week, no school. We watched so many movies, and played
video-games during that week. That was the time “Semah Choumad”
spent trying to convince the administration to call “M’hamed’s”
expulsion off. And he did convince them at the end. He was the head of
the class back then. “M’hamed” came back the following week, and he
was unhappy.  I guess he liked his week off. 

The final exam was in two weeks time. And as usual, “M’hamed” and I
had not prepared for it. We cared less about it actually.  We kept
playing video-games and watching movies like we usually do. 
The exam started, and we did it all with no revision of course. 
We usually pass exams without cheating, but that exact exam was one

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to remember. I mean, we broke our top rule, or to be more precise,

“M’hamed” did. It was during “Physics” exams, which was one that we
sucked at. Actually, we sucked at any subject in the French language. 
I never thought about cheating in tests or exams. In fact, I never cared
about getting high grades in any subject at all. I don’t usually revise for
a test or an exam; however, I go in there and challenge myself to
answer the questions to test the point of my consistent attendance for
all those boring classes. And what makes me happier is to go out of a
test expecting getting 2 or 3 points, and when the results are out, I get
4 or 5 points instead. That’s me, I feel satisfied with just getting more
than what I expected.  So, like I said, “M’hamed” did it. We usually
sit together, but not once we asked one another for an answer because
we both know that none of us knows the answer.  There was our
classmate “Meyloo” she was good at “Physics”. She was sitting behind
us, so she folded a piece of paper with answers and passed it to me. 
But I said “thanks, but I can handle it on my own” which turned out
later on that I couldn’t handle it on my own.  “M’hamed” said “you
know what…. I’m taking it”. And he did. He took it and broke our rule
to never cheat. And just because I didn’t take it and he did, he passed
that exam, while I didn’t. He barely passed, and I barely failed.  All it
took to pass was reaching the average of [09]. I remember I got [8.96]
and he got [9.04].  “Meyloo” and her piece of paper separated us. 
I mean we could have failed together.  I was happy for him
though, as he was sad for me.  However, we kept playing video-

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games and watching movies during that summer vacation. Yup! That
was how much we were careless. . I failed but at least I wrote a
song or an outlaw poem that didn’t follow any poetic rules in that year.

“THE WILL“

LOOK UP TO THE SKY, YOU WISH YOU CAN FLY

FLYING VERY HIGH, CROSSING THE OCEAN, YOU AND I
CUZ WE MIGHT DIE, WITHOUT KNOWING WHY
BUT DON’T BE SHY, LET’S GO AND TRY
BUT I WILL NOT LIE, I CAN’T FLY, I CAN’T TOUCH THE SKY
BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT I WON’T TRY
SUCCESS NEEDS FORCE, I KNOW THAT OF COURSE
I’M RUNNING LIKE A HORSE, JUST TO FIND THE SOURCE
SOMETIMES IT’S HARD TO FIND WORDS TO SAY
WHEN YOUR HEART IS SO FAR AWAY
SOMETIMES THE WORDS CAN’T SAVE THE DAY
JUST KEEP BELIEVING AND YOU’LL FIND A WAY
IT’S HARD TO FIND A HEART TODAY, WHEN YOUR HEART RUNS AWAY
IN THIS CASE I’LL KNEEL AND PRAY, THANKING GOD FOR ANOTHER NEW DAY
I CAN’T JUST STAY WITHOUT MAKING A MOVE
I’LL LAUGH AND SAY, I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO PROVE
SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, MAYBE NOT NOW, NOT TODAY
I’LL FIND A WAY, TO FLY OVER THE GROUND
TO HEAR THE SOUND OF THE WIND PASSING AROUND
CUZ I’VE GOT A WILL OF STEEL
AND I’M SURE OF WHAT I FEEL, DESPITE ALL THE FEAR
THE SKY IS MY LIMIT, AND THE SKY IS NOT NEAR… .

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I repeated the 6th grade. This time I was on my own, none of my

friends was there with me. It was a class full of new faces. “M’hamed”
passed to the 7th grade; he was on the “brink of graduation”. 
The first day I came to class, I sat at the back where I usually sit, and
there I met “Babiye”. He was a nice guy, and he was a good student as
well. He was the first one I befriended, except the fact that the
following day I spotted two of my old classmates.  And they were
“Lalla Zeidane” and “Zaki”.  We were the only students who failed.
And for some reason, I don’t understand that because there were
worse students than us, but somehow they managed to pass. 
I sucked at all the subjects except for “English”. It was the only class I
liked and had the ability to look active and participate during the
most.  There was that one time when “Babiye” and I were
chitchatting about English, and this question came up. I asked him who
the best student in English among them was, and he pointed to
“Mariem Hebey”.  Well, let me throw a quick disclaimer down here,
please. 

(“Mariem” and I are close friends so whatever might come next is not a
mockery for her personage).

I never participated during classes including the English class because

I wanted to see how good she was at English. And it turned out that she
was the best in the class because all of them were worse off than her in
English.  And that was something we had in common. 

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Sorry sweetheart, but this book is based on true stories only. 
Moving forward, I remember that time when we had a test in English,
and she was a very hard working student. She was always ahead of the
rest of us. However, when our test results in English were out, she got
hers first, and she got 16/20. The teacher was giving everyone their
results, and she was asking everyone about their results just to make
sure she was still on the top.  And I was the last one to get his result.
And guess what, I got 18/20. She was frustrated at the beginning, but
she got over it at the end of the day. We became close friends since
that day. Actually, if I knew how important it was for her back then, I’d
not have got that 18.

Back to class, it turned out that redoing the same class for
another year was not that bad. I got to know many new friends, such as
“Seiga, Mustapha, Aliyen, Hmeyid, and the Trouble-Trio….”. I’ll tell you
a little bit about them, for instance “Seiga”, he was a trouble maker, he
was known for being the best student in English back in his hometown
(F’derik). I mean, I had friends from there and every time they tell me,
like, “Do you know “Seiga” and I go like, “Yeah, we’re classmates”. Then
they go like, “He is a sensei in English”, and I go like, “For real?” I’ll
stop here and laugh for 10 straight seconds because a lot of what was
going was really going on.  Next, is “Aliyen”. He lived next-door to
high school. We used to spend time in his house during short breaks or
when we don’t have classes. We used to drink tea, well, I don’t drink
tea, but I watch them drink it, I just eat bread and drink water. 

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Moving forward, “Hmeyid” and he is a nice guy and a huge fan of the
(WWE). Well, that’s all you need to know about him.  And now is
the “Trouble-Trio”. I bet you already have an idea or two about them
in your mind.  They were three -which is definitely one of the ideas
you had-, three girls in my class, “Ghalla”, “Khadija”, and “Tekber”.
“Ghalla” was a good student unlike “Khadija” who was lazy and
annoyingly funny.  “Tekber” was different. She had her own magic.
She was a silent girl, and she used to come to class with her unique
makeup. I know nothing about makeup and stuff, but I’ll try to
describe her anyway: she was a demi-goth girl. She had a white pale
skin, her face was white, and she had a dark red dyed hair, dark
eyeliner, beautiful eyes, and a beautiful smile but rarely seen, and
fingernails painted in black. She looked closely like “Jade” from
“Victorious”, a Nickelodeon teen show.  We used to sit in the back
next to each other because she used to bring bread with her every day.
She lived next to a bakery after all.  And I used to bring milk or Rani
(Mango juice) with me, and we eat it all together during the course. 

In the other sub-class, there were “Meyna, Pato, Hamdi, and JB”.
Yup! JB is back in town.  “Meyna” was “Ghalla’s” neighbor. That
was all I knew about her back then. . “Pato” was their head of
class I believe. He was also a good student and a hard working one.
“Hamdi” on the other hand, was “Pato and JB’s” friend. That was all I
knew about him at that time. “Rakiya”, “Lediba” and “Mejhouda” were
somewhere there too. .

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Meanwhile, my ex-classmates were struggling to pass the (BAC).

“Benz” vanished every last week before an exam, literally. He was
staying at home revising all day and night long. “M’hamed’’ on the
other hand, was doing what he did best, which was “Skipping classes”.
 Yeah! You thought he would change and become a bit serious
because he was about to graduate. Well, think again. He was skipping
classes and encouraging me to skip classes too, but I was so not into
that that much.  When I didn’t skip classes with him, he found away
to cause not only me but the whole class to skip the class in the middle
of the course.  Our English teacher “Sidi Sy” told us to write the
lesson on the black board and went out. My friend “M’hamed” was
skipping his class at the exact same time, and he saw our teacher
leaving. So he came to us and told us that the teacher told him to tell us
that the teacher told us that we can leave when we finish writing the
lesson.  Therefore, most of the students left without even writing
anything including me of course because I didn’t have copybooks in
the first place.  The teacher came back after few minutes, and he
found the classroom half-empty, actually more than half-empty. 
He was upset. And I couldn’t put the blame on him, or on us, but the
blame was on “M’hamed”.  Unlike the rest of the world, we don’t
have “detention” as punishment. And by the “rest of the world” I mean
“USA”, I don’t know about the educational system in other countries,
but Americans have detention rooms to punish students, or that’s
what I see in movies.  Instead, we have what I call “losing points we

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don’t even have”.  The teacher took the names of the few students
who were still in the classroom, and he punished the rest of us. He
gave them books, while we didn’t get any. Also, he let them attend the
following class the following week, while he didn’t let us attend that
class. Let alone that missing his classes was a very common happening
anyway.  I mean, one major rule of his many rules was that once he
enters the classroom no one else enters after. So, if you were not in the
classroom before his arrival; then consider yourself excluded from the
picture.  I remember we used to meet him on our way to school, and
we try to outrun him to the classroom, and trust me, he’s a fast walker.
. That day, when he punished us, they told him it wasn’t their
fault, and that it was an anonymous student who came and told them
that the teacher permitted them to leave after they finish writing the
lesson.  But he was a man of action, he didn’t back down on his
decision. After all, it was just a prank by my reckless friend
“M’hamed”. No one knew who “M’hamed” was but me, and fortunately
they didn’t see me with him that day. Otherwise I’d have been in big
trouble.  The best thing that day was leaving with “M’hamed” to
his house where his mother welcomed us with cold drink and good
food thinking that we were studying very hard all that day.  She’s
the best.

I had another English teacher “Havedh” who taught me in the 5th

and the first 6th grade as well, and he was teaching the 7th grade at that
time. I used to skip French classes -obviously because I sucked at

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French- and attend his class with the 7th grade. He was my favorite
teacher. Few weeks later, we had our final exam. And I remember
when it was “Math”, and the teacher who was supervising on us at that
time was going to send “Tekber” out because she was speaking with
someone. Translation: “An attempt to cheat”. Yes, that’s what
“Speaking” during an exam means according to the teacher.  And
it happened that I had finished my work, which was basically writing
my name and my number on the exam paper.  I stood up and said
“I’ll go out instead of her”.  The teacher threw me with a look on his
face like if he was saying “WHAT THE HELL?”.  And the students
were shocked and silent at the same time. And somehow, the teacher
accepted my sacrifice.  I thought he or she would say “No, you don’t
have to do this, you know?” and then I heroically reply “I know, but
with great power comes great responsibility”.  But none of that
happened.  To be honest, I did that because I sucked at “Math”, like
literally. I couldn’t do anything that day but to write my name and my
number then leave.  So I never intended to go out instead of her, it
happened that she was in the right place at the right time.  I was
leaving anyway.  I walked towards the teacher’s desk to hand in my
exam paper, well let me emphasize and be more precise, to hand in my
empty exam paper.  And as I was walking out through the
classroom door, I stopped for a moment, looked at “Tekber” and said
“Make sure you pass Math” . She laughed, along with everyone
else.  And guess what, she failed to pass “Math” and even failed to

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pass the whole class as well. . All my heroic work was gone with
the wind.  But ironically, I passed the exam and with good grades.
“Benz” on the other hand, was doing his best to graduate from high
school and he did Along with “Selkou” and “Bewba” who came out of
nowhere and shocked them all. Until this day, they are still wondering
how she did it.  She wasn’t a hardworking type of A student; rather
she was more like me and “M’hamed”. She comes and leaves without
participating in any of their classes, yet somehow she managed to
graduate. They were the only students who graduated from that class
of 2014. “Mrs. Wane” joined them later. And she actually shocked us
all. She was the best student in the class, yet she failed to graduate. But
it turned out that they had made a mistake in her grades.  Typical
Mauritanians.  They fixed that, and she graduated with the clan.
And at the same time, “M’hamed” failed to graduate, which was highly
expected.  Like, it didn’t even surprise us at all. “Selkou” , “Bewba” ,
and “Mrs. Wane” went to the university. “Benz” didn’t go to the
university because he was injured in a train incident.  He hurt his
back; therefore he spent that year getting treatment. Meanwhile,
“M’hamed” and I were just acting normal.  We were watching TV,
and playing video-games that whole summer vacation. 

(7-A), I joined “M’hamed” again. He thought he was going to

leave me there alone, but God had another plan for us. Just add his
zero interest to my zero interest in studying, and you’ll get double

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zero interest in studying.  Though we still had my backpack, which

was very useful in our educational career.  Unlike the other
backpacks, it never contained copybooks, notebooks, books, or such
stuff.  Instead it had always contained bread and peanuts that we
bought on our way to school passing by the marketplace.  We had
few unbroken scholar records, among them, the fact that “M’hamed”
and I used to go to school together, like every day, but we never came
back from it together, unless I was skipping a class too.  And that
was because “M’hamed” spent that whole year skipping the last class
of the day, and at other times the last couple classes of the three
classes we had a day. He was skipping classes excessively. They
probably had to stretch the length of truancy limits just to keep him in
school without being expelled, again.  Now, if you didn’t laugh at
that joke, then it is probably because you don’t know what “truancy”
means. 

Another unbroken record of ours was the fact that we were the
first people who used to finish with tests and exams. We usually take 7
to 10 minutes out of 2 hours to finish with a test or an exam, and that
was due to the fact that we don’t cheat for the sake of ourselves during
them.  If we know the answers, then that is great. And If not, then
that is not great, but it is okay because there is nothing we can do
anyway.  There was that one time when a friend of mine pulled out
an attempt to break our record. He didn’t understand any question in
that test so he took his paper and went to hand it in to the teacher.

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Lucky me, I saw him coming from the back, so I didn’t care about the
grade I might get in that test. I was more concerned and careful about
keeping my record unbroken, so I got up and walked toward the
teacher’s desk to hand in my paper as well. We ended up handing in
our papers at the same time. But I won that race.  He wrote his name
and number only, while I wrote my name, number, and the word
“Answer”.   That was how I managed to keep my record
unbroken. However, there was another test where I assured that my
record would stay globally and historically unbroken.  In that test,
they distributed the test papers on us, and then they told the half of
the class to leave to another classroom because our classroom was
full. I left with that half, and while we were walking I did the test. 
When we reached the classroom the teacher was standing at the door,
so I handed him my test paper. He went like “What is this?” “It is my
test paper, I have finished it.” I replied. “Ah! Okay” he surprisingly
said. And that was how my record is now unbreakable. I did a test
without even being in the classroom.  Those were records of our
many unbroken records. 

We had the most severely serious and strict director ever.

Students were shaking and afraid just of his shadow.  He didn’t like
to see students wearing weird and fashionable clothes; therefore he
used to scold them every time he catches one of them wearing
improper clothes. Another thing he didn’t like was wild and reckless
haircuts. I heard one time he took a scissor and cut some of someone’s

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hair.  However, among the things that he didn’t like was the
gathering of students in front of their classes. Once, we were standing
in front of the classroom waiting for the teacher to come, and I saw the
director coming toward us. I didn’t want to scream “Guys, the director
is coming” because I didn’t want to cause any sort of panic, so I asked
them with a calm and relaxed tone:

 “Hey! Guys, I have a question. What would you do if I told you

that the director is coming?”

Despite all the effort I made to warn them in a peaceful and calm way,
they snapped! Then freaked out and ran into the classroom, and I
followed them. He was almost there. 

In the class, if “M’hamed” and I were not sleeping, then I would

be drawing, and he would be on Facebook or Twitter.  Like I said, we
didn’t have copybooks, therefore when the “Philosophy” teacher
figured out that “M’hamed” hadn’t written any lesson from the
beginning of the year he sent him out on “Probation”. He told him not
to come back before he had copied the whole lessons. And that was the
last time we heard of or seen “M’hamed” in “Philosophy” class.  You
didn’t really think he was going to copy those lessons, did you? Now, if
you didn’t laugh at this scene, then it is probably because you don’t
know what “Probation” means. .

As you know, I suck at French. One time, our French teacher

“Mr. Sakho” was dictating a lesson, and because I didn’t have

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copybooks, I wasn’t writing like the rest. In the matter of fact, I was
drawing in white paper sheets I usually bring with me to the
classroom for drawing purposes.  He caught me drawing, so he took
my drawing and showed it to the whole class, and said: “Look! This is a
student who is going to graduate.” This is me paraphrasing what he
said actually, because he said it in French in addition to other French
words I couldn’t understand.  After I had graduated, I thought of
coming back and telling him about it. 

Moving forward, we had an Arabic teacher who used to choose a

student to write the lessons on the blackboard, and that student was
“Mariem Hebey”. She used to write lessons on the blackboard, and
then goes back and writes the lesson for herself, and that was really
exhausting.  After few days, the teacher found out that I didn’t have
copybooks whatsoever, so he made me the official lessons’ writer for
the class.  Even though, “Pato” was the best student in the class,
the teacher chose me over him for my free-time in the course. I was
just sleeping or drawing during courses. Plus, I don’t really think
“Pato” would have wanted that position. It wasn’t cool, for it was
exhausting. Yup! Speaking from experience. 

Moving swiftly on, the national exam (B.A.C) took place.

“M’hamed” and I were playing video games the night before, while
“Grampa” was studying hard. He wanted to play with us, but we were
like: “We’ll take care of the ‘playing’ part, and you take care of the
‘studying’ part.”  He was a hard working student. “M’hamed” and I

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were luckily lucky, our luck itself was lucky.  During the exam, we
had “Philosophy” it was considered the hardest subject because it was
“Philosophy”.  When we entered the school, and before the actual
exam begins, we grabbed “Grampa” aside and asked him to give us a
synopsis about one of the topics in that subject. We ended up choosing
“Personality”, and he explained it a little bit for us. Then we went in
for the exam, and that exact topic was our exam.  We were lucky
because if it was any other topic rather than that one, we would have
been screwed.  We were not in the same classroom then, but we
were the first people to finish with the exam. We usually meet in the
schoolyard, alone; no one else was out at that time when we were. 
Another subject we had was “French”  Yup! The one subject we suck
at the most. I slept for the half of its time, then woke up and wrote
some (Frenglish) and left.  Yup! When I don’t find a word in French,
I just write it in English and hope it exists in French and that it has the
same meaning. One other subject we had was “History & Geography”.
“M’hamed” and I had a paper that contained numbers and percentages
of oil in Middle East, which was a topic in “Geography”. We revised and
memorized those numbers while we were walking to school.  My
table-mate in the exam was “Hamdi”, and he met me before the exam
and told me “Hey! Ben, I need your help in this subject, I didn’t revise
it well” and I said “Well, I know only one topic, which is ‘oil’, so if it
happened and we have it, we are lucky, and if not, then we are not”. 
And lucky both of us, we had the ‘oil’ topic, so we did well that day. 

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And then came “English”, it was the only subject I could do some in. 
However, I was about to lose that privilege, because I had my phone in
my pocket.  It was off, but I had set the alarm for the prayer already.
Therefore it was going to ring anyway, and if a phone was found with
anybody, they would be automatically sent out and excluded from that
exam. Lucky me I had a hand-watch, and it saved me that day. I saw the
time, and I remembered the alarm. We had some water outside at the
classroom door, so I took permission to drink some. And once I was
outside, I took out my phone, opened it and took out the battery, and
then I put the battery in my left pocket and the phone in my right
pocket. All of that happened in a matter of a second.  Honestly,
“M’hamed” and I were very lucky. We chose one topic out of each
subject, and then we pretended to revise that topic five minutes before
we started the exam. And every time, the topic we chose was the one
we had in the exam.  God is great.

Few weeks later, the results were out. It was Ramadan, and I
was coming back from the bakery at 4pm, alongside with my friend
“M’hamed” and probably “Pélé” too, though I’m not sure about that. 
My friend “Coach” called me from Nouakchott just to inform me that I
have failed.  And he dares to call himself my friend. 

 Coach: Hello, Ben, you didn’t pass, and I made it to the resit.
 Me: oh! Okay. Good for you.

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We were not expecting that we would pass the (B.A.C) anyway, so we

were not surprised by the gloomy news. 

Few minutes later, and my phone rang again.

 Me: Hello!
 Coach: Hello, look. You didn’t fail, you made it to the resit and I
passed.
 Me: Oh! Okay. Good for you.

I hanged up, and went on my way. “M’hamed” was surprised I could

even make it to the resit, and so did I. 

Moments later, and my phone rang for the third time. 

 Coach: Hey Ben, you know what, you’re the one who passed, and
I am the one who made it to the resit.
 Me: Oh! Okay. Now we’re talking. Oh, and…. Good for you. 

Now that did surprise us.  That was something actually. 
He had to call me three times to tell me that I had failed, made it to the
resit, and eventually succeeded. It was hilariously ridiculous in an
awesome way. Unfortunately, “M’hamed” and “Pélé” didn’t pass the
exam. That night, “M’hamed” was like:

“I know I didn’t and won’t pass the exam; I just want to make sure of
that to get over it and move on” 

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On the other hand, “Grampa”, “JB”, “Babiye”, “Seiga”, “Ghalla”, and

surprisingly “Pato” made it to the resit, whereas, “Hamdi” was the first
in the exam. They passed the resit, all of them except “Ghalla”, she was
unfortunately unlucky. Also, “Mentou” graduated, and my neighbor
graduated too: “Houda” or “Taylor Swift” because they look alike. 
Eventually, we went to the university, while “M’hamed” and “Pélé”
didn’t. “M’hamed” went to Nouadhibou, whereas “Pélé” stayed in
Zouerate. 

In a nutshell, high school was the craziest and the messiest time
in my life. A lot happened, and a lot is yet to happen. And by the way, I
wrote another song that year: 

“FINAL DESTINATION”

LIFE IS PASSING FAST; NOTHING CAN STAND TO THE LAST. SO STOP! STOP!

DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YESTERDAY, CUZ YESTERDAY’S GONE

JUST LIVE THE MOMENT TILL IT’S DONE, THEN START WITH A NEW ONE

SO HAVE A NICE DAY, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY

DAY AFTER DAY, TIME TICKS LIFE AWAY, IT NEVER STOPS, NEVER STAYS

WATCH IT COUNTDOWN TILL THE END OF THE DAYS

SO CONSIDER IT RUNNING OUT AND AWAY

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LIKE IF IT’S OUT OF OUR DIMENSION, STOPPIN’ IT IS NOT EVEN AN OPTION

CATCHIN’ IT IS A FICTION, CHASIN’ IT IS AN ILLUSION

YOU’VE JUST TO WALK IN ITS DIRECTION, TILL YOU GET TO YOUR FINAL DESTINATION
CUZ ANYTHING ELSE IS OUT OF THE WINDOW

YOU SPEND YOUR TIME CHASING TOMORROW

IT’S RUNNING SO FAST, AND YOU’RE SO SLOW

BUT IN TIME YOU’LL KNOW THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW

AND YOU’LL SEE THINGS YOU DIDN’T SEE BEFOR

SO WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR

AND YOU’LL FIGURE OUT THAT LIFE IS NOT THE SAME ANYMORE

SO ENJOY IT BEFORE IT’S GONE, WHY ARE YOU FROZEN? JUST RUN

RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN, IT MIGHT BE YOUR LAST STAND

CUZ YOU’RE LIVING IN A WORLD OF REGRET

WHERE’S NOBODY’S HAPPY WITH WHAT THEY GET

AND I BET, IT ALWAYS ENDS UP WITH BEING UPSET

THINGS AREN’T THE WAY THEY WERE BEFORE
YOU’RE LIKE YOU CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE

BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO FALL, OR LOSE IT ALL

JUST FORGET ABOUT THE PAST, AND LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

AND NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES, CUZ WHAT’S DONE IS DONE

PRESS FORWARD AND GO ON, LIKE A BULLET FROM A SHOTGUN

YESTERDAY’S A HISTORY, TOMORROW’S A MYSTERY

TODAY IS A NEW DAY, NEW SAYIN’

THAT LIFE COMES IN DIFFERENT WAYS !!

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CHAPTER THREE

“AT THE UNIVERSITY F NKTT”

Well, I was a university student by the end of that year. 

I traveled for the first time since fifteen years ago, and I was in the
capital. It was nothing like my calm hometown. It was big, vast, noisy,
crowded, heavy, and cold in both meanings. 

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The University was out of the city, so we had to take crappy

buses to get there. I met “Pato” at Madrid crossroads, and then we took
the bus and went to the university. When we reached there, we were
amazed by the whole view. The faculty was actually big and beautiful
unlike the dusty schools we had back in Zouerate.  We tried to
inscribe that day, but it was very crowded and the queue was long. So
we went for sightseeing that day. We explored the whole faculty, and
we took some selfies in different locations in it. You can say it felt like
if we were in a picnic.  After that we took the bus home. But while
we were in the bus, we met “Wiwi”. She was a nice and friendly girl. We
came back few days later, and we managed to inscribe. “Benz” and
“Grampa” joined me there days later, though “Grampa” was not even
in the same department as of me, “Pato” and “Benz”. Instead, he was in
the Geography department, so he transferred to the English
department few weeks later. Unfortunately, “JB” and “Babiye” were
not even with us at university, they went to an institution (ISPLTI).
“JB” transferred to university and precisely to the English department
with us three months later. Eventually, we ended up together in the
same faculty and in the same department, the English department. 

After couple months, we faced a transportation crisis. We were

missing classes and often coming late to class, and that was due to the
few crappy buses we had. Students protested for three weeks, and
there was where I met “Meii”. She was a friend of “Wiwi”, and she
became a friend of mine and “Pato’s” as well.

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She is brave, smart, and different. Her eyes are beautiful, and so is she.
She has a “purple heart”. Only she knows what that means, so never
mind and just keep on reading. 

After three to four weeks, there was a sort of a temporary solution for
the transportation crisis. It got a little bit easier, and then the classes
were resumed.

We had our own squad, the “Resto-Squad”. It was me,

“Grampa”, “Benz”, “JB” and “Pato”. We were called “Resto-Squad”
because we used to go to the campus’s so called restaurant every day.
It was very far from the campus, that even if you go there and eat the
“things” they serve there, and go back to campus, you will feel hungry
again because of the far distance between both. Among the squad
members, I was the one given the job of providing tickets for the
restaurant. “Grampa” was the one who pays for the tickets, and the
rest of the members were uselessly useless, they were just the “food
eaters”.  We were all poor except for “Grampa”; therefore he was
the one taking care of the financial needs for the squad. 

Days went by, and we gained more friends, such as “Jane” who
was a friend of “Wiwi” and “Meii”. Also, “Meyma”, whom we were the
first people she met at campus, me and “Benz”.  We had many other
friends, “Ali”, “Med Metissage”, “Ahmed”, “Mamouni”, “Bounene”,
“Khalil”, “Sidi Boyka”, “Sidi Silva”, “Braza”, “Brems”, “Sapire”, “Saleck”,
“El Alem”, “Sa3d bouh”, “Sadam”, “Hassouna”, “Med Tiyeb”, “Amigo”,

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“Moubarack”, “Yussuf”, “Khalid”, “Debesh”, “Abdou Bouk”, “Bah”,

“Sidi”, “Atih”, “Med Khatry”, “Mini”, “Ghazavi”, “Dembis”, “Bahan”, “El
Haj Zeid”, “The Emperor”, “Cheikh”, “Mohameden”, “Sami”, “Ewah”,
“Kaber”, “Magha”, “Reus”, “Tarek”, and many more I just don’t
remember their names, and I didn’t nickname them, so… . Now
here is a short synopsis about “Khalid”, “Jane’s” cousin. He is a
Palestinian, and I consider him my mentor.  Therefore, I wrote a
song for him especially, and for Palestinians in general. It goes
something like this:

“THE UPRISE“

LAYING UNDER THE MOONLIGHT, STARING AT THE SKY IN THE NIGHT

GAZING AT THE STARS SHINING BRIGHT, WALKING UNDER THE WARM SUNLIGHT

IT WAS THIS WAY BEFORE, BUT NOT ANYMORE

IT HAPPENED THAT THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE, AND I’M THE MAN TO DEFEAT

SO GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT, CUZ IT WON’T MAKE ME MOVE MY FEET

YOU CAN BLOW A MOUNTAIN, YOU CAN PASS THROUGH THE SEA

YOU CAN SHAKE THE GROUND, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE ME OFF MY SEAT

YOU CAN CUT DOWN TREES, AND STOMP ON THE LEAVES

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BUT IT’S JUST A MATTER OF TIME, AND YOU’LL REALIZE THAT

WE’RE THE WOLVES, AND YOU’RE THE SHEEP

YOU CAN TRY TO COME FROM THE SKY, OR EVEN FROM THE BACKSIDE

BUT IT WILL ALL FAIL, CUZ WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE

WE’LL SHAKE YOUR FAITH WHEN WE ROAR, SEE OUR FISTS WAVING IN THE AIR

WE’LL STAY STANDING TALL, AND WE WON’T FALL

CUZ WE HAVE WHAT’S WORTH FIGHTING FOR

THIS IS OUR LAND, AND WE WON’T BOW, NO, NOT AT ALL

WE’LL KEEP FIGHTING TILL WE CAN NO MORE

WE’LL KEEP FIGHTING TILL WE WIN THIS WAR

TRESPASSING, DESTRUCTION, THAT’S ALL YOU DO

GET READY, CUZ WE’RE TURNING YOUR FIRES BACK TO YOU

KEEP FIGHTING, NEVER GIVE UP, THAT’S ALL WE DO

EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE SO FAR, WE’LL DEFINITELY UNDO.

I don’t remember if I had already shown it to him or not, I’m not sure,
but there it is. 

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We met great girls-friends, amongst was “Nouf Al Kubaisi” who

used to buy us drinks, cakes, and delicious stuff. As well as “Minati”
who was good at French, “Tetta”, “Emane Khatar”, “Varha”, “Mari”,
“Khouda”, “Nejdy”, “Mah”, “Izzy”, “Nevise”, “Meimouna”, “Coumba”,
“Rougy”, “Hendou”, “Belghiss” , “Mouna”, “Mayoz”, “Mariem Europe”,
“Tehany” or (Mrs. Congratulations) as I like to call her.  She used
to buy me Mini bottles of Danone, whereas “Edhat” was the one to buy
me big size bottles of DANONE. She was beautiful, kind, elegant,
friendly, and funny. She was the cool girl. In addition to those, there
was “Sagida”. She used to buy me Sandwiches.  “Emel”, “Salma”,
“Nafi”, and “Kiya” were the ones who bought me Danone in several
occasions. And here are the rest kindly nice but useless friends when
it comes to buying me “Danone”:

……....……

There are none. I don’t befriend people who don’t buy me “Danone”. 

The first year of the university was exciting, and we were

energetic and excited for it. We were not that bad at English back then.
“Benz” and I knew some. However, on one hand “Pato” and “JB” were
not that good at English, so they had to study English somewhere else
to improve their levels. They studied at “English Basics Center” (ebc).
They boosted their levels in English up, which helped them a lot
dealing with the subjects in campus. “Grampa” on the other hand, had
zero level in English. He even threatened to drop out because he failed

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in most tests. Therefore, we had to do something about that and fast.

So we did the tests left and the exams on behalf of him. And not just
because he was our friend, no, and hell no. we majorly did that
because he used to buy us breakfast, so if he dropped out, we would
have died of hunger there.  We helped him to pass to the second
year, and that gave him enough motivation to stick around with us. 

We had so many crazy days, for instance, I used to be the one

among the squad members who wakes up early and go to campus. 
Therefore, “Grampa” used to give me the money of the resto-tickets at
night, and I buy us the tickets in the early morning before they run out.
 They used to call me in the morning and when I pick the phone up
I think that they are calling me to see how I am doing, but that is not it.
They call me to ask me if I got them the tickets.  If we don’t have
those tickets, there is a high probability that we won’t go to university
that day.  To be honest, the resto was the reason we go there and
not the study.    The Resto-Squad was all about having fun, so no
tediousness was allowed. And like I said, we had so many crazy days.
For instance, we had no classes on Mondays. However, “Benz” and I
used to go to the campus every Monday and go to the Resto and have
lunch there because Monday was the “fried chickens” day.  And
also there was that day when “Benz” and I went to the Resto twice on a
row. We went there and had our lunch, and then we went back to the
campus. But because it was far and we walked for a long distance, we
felt hungry again, so we went back to the Resto one more time. 

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There was also that time, and it was Friday and what a freaky
Friday it was.  We came early to campus, and we were hungry. We
hadn’t had our breakfast yet, for we were waiting for “Grampa”. He
was the one who was going to pay for it after all.  But he didn’t come
that day, and it was almost 10 am.

“Guys I’m starving” Said “Benz” putting his hands on his empty belly. 

“Not only you amigo, we’re all starving!” I said, mocking how he
thought he was special. 

“I don’t think he is coming anymore” Said “JB” with a paranoiac face. 

We stayed there for a while sitting in “Habib’s” cafeteria staring at all

the food, chocolate, drinks and bread there. And believe me, it’s very
painful to look dead in the eye at something that you want to grab or
even touch at least, and you can’t do that because of a piece of paper or
a silver circle.  It sucks.  Anyway, after a while we left
“Habib’s” cafeteria. We were wandering around in the campus, when
we saw 100 um.  Yup! It was wandering there too; it was going
where the wind was taking it.  I remember we ran after it, and “JB”
could catch it. We sat there for few minutes, and we were thinking
about what we could buy with it. It was only 100 um, and we were
three. We needed something big or a lot so we could share it. 
I suggested “Bread”, but they turned my suggestion down. At the end
of the day, we ended up buying “Biscuits”.  We sat there and ate
those “Biscuits”; and then we left home.  Actually we didn’t go

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home that day when we left campus.  We went to “Grampa’s” house

instead. We were complaining about him leaving us to die from hunger
at campus. And as an apology, he let us have lunch with him.  And
when we were leaving, he gave each one of us some money for the taxi.
But why do we have feet?  Exactly! So we can walk.  I took the
money I got from him and put it in my pocket; then I started walking
home. And it was not near; it was 35 to 40 minutes by feet. But at least
I kept the money. 

Back to campus, we used to enjoy our classes, at least the ones

that were not boring to death. We actually just usually leave out from
the classes that are boring to death.  I had many awesome and
funny friends. We always do crazy stuff together.  I remember one of
my classmates, “Vadila”. She was hilarious; she had that French “R”
pronunciation in her accent. When she speaks, it is really funny in a
cute way though.  She used to compete with me in grades. Every
time we get our tests’ grades, she comes over to me and says “How
much did you get?” and I reply “You first”. Then she says, for instance
“I got 15”. I reply “I got 10” even though it is not always true because I
usually get more than what she gets.  I always reduce my points
when I tell her, just so that she feels good about herself.  Plus, I
like making people happy.  And she had a pretty smile; you would
do anything to see her smiling.  We used to pass by restaurants, like
real ones,  on our way home and buy some fried chickens or just
sandwiches then regret it later because we paid for it.   We

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usually split the payment in half, and still regret it.  She had other
friends, such as “Emel, Oumama, and Oumkelyhoum”, they were great
people I had the chance to meet and know.  As well as, the trinity of
chaos, “Chiva”, “Oumsouleim”, and “Bouha”, they were funny people in
an annoyingly cute way.  They were nice, and they had invited me
to lunch many times. However, they are bunch of weirdoes; they are in
love with my legs.  Yup! I said “Legs”, L-e-g-s.   “Khalil” also had
invited us to many lunches and dinners at his house. I remember that
time when we had our teacher “Saviya” teaching us about making
researches, and she used to say “Collecting Data” a lot.  It was stuck
in our minds at that time.  We were eating dinner with him, and
it was me, “Benz”, “Ali”, “Ahmed”, “Metissage”, and “Bounena”. I
remember there were two plates, one filled with chickens, and the
other one filled with vegetables, like, salad and such stuff. And we
were supposed to start with one of them first, but we ended up
disagreeing to which we should start with, so we decided to eat both at
the same time.  And when we started eating, I was taking
something from one plate and something else from the other one at
the same time, then mixing it all and eating it. 

“What the hell are you doing?” asked “Bounena” with a “leave me
some” expression on his face. 

“I’m just collecting data, that’s all it is.” I replied, with a “I’m hungry”
expression on my face. 

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We laughed a lot that night, it was memorial and immortal. 

Another memorial, unforgettable, and immortal night is that night we
spent in jail.  Yup, I said “jail”, it’s not a typo.  So, it was the feast
night, and “Khalil” called me to meet him at “Ali’s” place. It was almost
midnight, I went there walking.  I found “Bounena” and “Ali” there,
then “Khalil” joined us later. We were having fun, making tea, drinking
milk and water.  Then we spent some time watching “Khalil’s”
videos from his trip to the USA. We saw so many places, cities, and
famous statues. We saw Lincoln, Subways, the stunning Niagara falls,
the white house, and so many other things. The only thing “Bounena”
and I were complaining about was that “Khalil” spent every buck he
had on tourism. He travelled a lot, saw a lot, and spent a lot. 
The only thing we wanted him to have had done was to close his dorm
room on him and save the dollars he had given, so he gives us some of
them, or at least to have the ability to invite us to a dinner at a fancy
restaurant for once in our lives.  But no, he had to travel almost
everywhere in the USA, he even went to be close to go to Canada. 
After few hours, maybe around 3-am or so, “Bounena” said that he got
to go to his house because there was no man with his family that night.
I said I was leaving home as well. “Ali” and “Khalil” were against that,
they told us to spend the night with them, but we made our minds, so
we left and they went with us to walk us a little bit.  That was a
mistake they made right there.  While we were walking, the curfew
patrol suddenly stopped at us.

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“Get in the car”, a patrol man said.

We got in the back of the car, and once we sat there I found 100 um.
 Yeah, that was the best thing happened to me that night. 
They spent almost an hour roaming around in the streets collecting
the walkers they passed by. And “Khalil” was complaining to them:

“I walked at 3 and 4 am in the streets of New York, Georgia, LA,

Washington DC, and even in front of the freaking white house itself,
and no one asked me anything, and when I do the same in my own
mother country I go to jail…” 

“Well, this is not America.” Said the patrol man. 

And during their roaming, they passed near my house:

“Sir, if you pass by someone’s house can he leave?” I asked 

“No, that is not gonna happen” said the patrol man. 

Eventually, they took us to a police Department somewhere, and they

dropped us there. We spent almost 3 hours there in jail.  I took
out my rosary and started “Mentioning God” until the morning. 
“Khalil” laughed a lot at me, and he had a silent laughter. You could not
hear him laughing, he doesn’t laugh out loud like the rest of us. 
“Ali” was feeling asleep, so he slept for a while, while “Khalil”,
“Bounena” and I spent those three hours laughing and having fun in
jail.  And there were many people in jail that night. And one
prisoner was making us laugh a lot; he was talking some nonsensical

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nonsense all that time.  When it was the morning, they released
us all, so we went back to “Ali’s” place. We bought some bread with the
100 um I found in the back of the police patrol’s car.  We slept for
some time, and then I left home.  It was an amazing night. 

Back to campus, there was that day when “Benz” and I decided to
stay at campus until 6 pm. “Grampa” wasn’t there that day, nor
someone we knew.  We went to one of the amphitheatres where a
test took place, so we went there after everyone had left. We were
walking around the rows, when we found a half-full bottle of Danone.
We were happy; we drank it, as well as another almost-full bottle of
water.  But those were not the best things we found that day. 
“Benz” was checking out the notebooks, papers, and books that were
left there. Lucky us, it was lunch time, we had no money to buy it. But
God is great and generous. “Benz” opened a book and started flipping
its pages, and out of nowhere, couple thousands (2000 um) were
there, between two pages obviously.  “Benz” took the money and
threw the book away.  We flew of joy and happiness, and then we
went to “Habib’s” cafeteria and bought a nice and delicious lunch, plus
our favorite drinks, “Twist” for “Benz” and “Danone” for myself. That
was a hell of a beautiful day.  And as for the student who forgot
his or her money in that book, they should not be upset,  God will
reward them with all good.  If they didn’t forget about that money, in
that book, in that amphitheatre, on that day, we would have spent that
day without having lunch. And that is not cool.  

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Back to campus again, there was that day when also “Benz” and
I were left at campus, alone.  It was during the month of Ramadan,
and it was hot, and we were feeling tired and hungry. So we went to
one of the amphitheatres and slept there. After few hours, we woke up,
and went outside to wash our sleepy faces, and pour some water on
our hot-heads.  The campus gate was far from where we were, and
suddenly a campus security guard was waving at us, I believe he was
shocked that we were still there. We ignored him and went to the
fountain to wash our faces, yet he followed us there. 

“How come you’re still here?” he said.

“The buses had left an hour ago” he added.

“We overslept” we said.

“It’s alright; we’ll find someone to give us a ride.” We added.

And it was not alright because when we went outside, there was no
one, no car, nothing, only few dogs walking around. 

Suddenly, another student came out of nowhere; probably he was also

sleeping somewhere. 

“So, no buses here?” he asked us.

“No, none” We replied.

“Okay! Let’s go then” He said. 

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“Whaaaaat?” we reacted. 

Then, we ended up walking, and we were fasting.  That guy was a

freaking pro at walking, he seemed like he had been walking his entire
life.  And I was so competitive, so I told “Benz” that we had to break
this guy’s record in “walking”.  So, we walked from campus to the
last crossroads before “Big Market”. There, he took a taxi. Translation:
he gave up.  So, we continued walking to “Big Market” and there
we broke that guy’s record, walking from campus to “Big Market”
while fasting and during the month of Ramadan.  Eventually we
took a taxi, and once we jumped in that taxi, we looked tired and we
were heavily breathing. 

“Ho! Where were you?” Said that taxi driver.

“We were at the university.” We said.

“Were you walking or what?” Said the taxi driver, sarcastically. 

“Yes, we were.” We said

“Oh! Whaaat, no way, where are you from?” He said.

“We are from Zouerate” We said. 

“Oh! Then you can.” He said. 

We laughed at that a lot, and then we left. We came back home at 8pm
at night that day.  Actually “Benz” probably came home at 9 or so
because he lived far.  That was a day to remember. 

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Back to campus one more again,  “Pélé” got himself a room at

the campus dorm. I used to visit him there a lot, and he got a friend of
us coming from the city of “Atar”. He was doing “Baccalaureate”, and
he wanted me to teach him some English, for he sucked at it.  I taught
him a bit, and he was not actually that bad at it.  One week later, the
administration asked the students to turn in their rooms’ keys back. It
was the end of the scholar year, and they were going to close the dorm.
So, “Pélé” was upset, I was too, and so was “Larabas” our friend from
the city of “Atar.  And you can’t imagine what they did that day; I’m
positively sure they are going to go to hell for doing that.  Each
room in the dorm contained two beds, two blankets, two pillows, two
closets, two windows, two light bulbs, one fan, and one door.  I
know that was probably unnecessary, but I had to increase my word
count. Only writers will understand.  So, the thing was that we
were all upset about leaving the dorm, so when we were packing our
things up, a horrible idea hit us.  I wasn’t totally with it, but I wasn’t
totally against it either.  We had a school bag, but bigger than the
ordinary school backpacks, and we were putting our stuff in it. Then
we took some of that stuff out, and took one of the blankets that were
there and folded it to a smaller size to fit in the bag.  “Pélé” took it
home with him that day. It was so wrong, yet funny at the same time. 
So, if you ever hear that the campus is looking for a missing blanket,
then now you know where to point your fingers.  And leave me
out of it, okay? 

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Back to campus “One more again, again”.  You are probably

aware of the fact that I don’t revise for tests or exams by far.  So, I
used to seek help from “Wiwi”.  I used to always ask her to give me a
quick overview about that whole subject five minutes right before a
test or an exam. Well, “Wiwi” was a good explainer, but she had this
problem: When she explains something for me, or revise it for me, or
reminds me of, I never get asked about it in the actual test or exam. 
Therefore, I went to “Meii” instead.  And one quick fact about her is
that she makes notes about the things she revises, so everything is
well organized and well simplified with her. However, you can’t read
any of her notes, for her bad, awful, messy -and all their synonyms-
handwriting. 

Have you ever seen the traces and tracks of beetles, cockroaches, ants
and insects in general on the sand?

Well, that’s exactly how her handwriting looks like.  I actually
still wonder how the teachers were able to read the stuff she writes
with her bad handwriting and give her good grades as well. 
However, she helped me and my friend “Pato” a lot. She used to
explain everything for us five minutes before we start the exam, and
unlike “Wiwi”, what she explains for us we actually get asked about it
in the actual exam.  Well, one last thing, and it is probably not
important for you, but it is important for us.  I actually used to
bring them Lollipops every day except for the days I didn’t bring them
it, yeah! I said lollipops by the way.  They liked them a lot. 

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I used to bring four or five lollipops, one for “Meii”, and she’s the
reason why I bring them in the first place.  Then the rest get taken by
“Wiwi”, “Jane”, and “Aicha”. “Yussef” and “Pato” usually fight over the
last one. 

Three years of university, three years of ups and downs, smiles

and frowns, and traveling between towns.  The best night came,
the prom night.  And we were all happy to finally get rid of the
university and have nothing to do with it whatsoever anymore. 
A quick fact: by the way, I didn’t graduate that year with my classmates
because I missed some tests and some exams. But I graduated the
following year though.  The head of class, “Med Teyib” did so much
help for us. He also prepared everything for graduation. That night
was funny, joyful, and amazing. I remember I came along with my
friend “JB” and he was really dressed up, like the guy was fancy with
his fancy suit and tie.  I was wearing a suit as well, my cheap suit
that I bought with (400 A-um) from a thrift shop in Nouadhibou. 
That was not a discount by the way, it was the real price.  Moving
forward, that night, we had most of our teachers there, some of them
made some speeches and some didn’t.  Our graduation speech was
with “Wiwi”. And it was emotional, amazing, and well said from her
part.  After that, the teachers left after congratulating the
graduates. Then, we started partying.  Anyway, I brought my
backpack with me so I can fill it with cakes, beverages, and food. 

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Yeah! I don’t like going somewhere and come back from there empty
handed.  But people were hungry that night, for I couldn’t find
any food left to take home with me.  Plus, there was no water as
well.  The graduation party took place in a fancy hotel, and many
foreigners were there, I think they were French.  And there was a
cafeteria in the hotel, so people had to buy water from there and it was
expensive.  Actually, everything there was expensive.  I
remember “Benz” was going there to buy a bottle of water, when he
saw a guy with his entourage and he opened the fridge and took a can
of Coca-Cola. Then he asked the “bartender” about the price of that can
and he told him: “800UM” and the normal price of it was actually
“200um” only. So the guy told the bartender: “Can I put it back?” 
and he left with his entourage.  For me, I was feeling a bit hungry
and thirsty, and there was a swimming pool where those foreigners
were swimming in, so when they left I went there with my friends “The
Emperor” and “Benz” because we saw some coffee, water, and bread
left on a chair over there.  I ate, drank, washed my face, and then
I went back to the party.  After that, I was taking selfies with
everyone, and everyone was taking selfies with everyone.  We
danced, jumped, and shouted.  We enjoyed that night.  It was a
night to remember.

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When I came back the following year for the subjects I had left, I
met many of my old friends who also had some subjects left. 
Yeah! I wasn’t alone after all.  However, I met many other
students such as “Hamadi”, “Peppe”, “Jekani”, “Hameye”, “Bastami”,
Cheikh Brahim”, “Yacoub”, “Deymani”, “Moulay”, “Salah”, “Ahmed Vall”,
“Salimou”, “Abbe”, “Bedi3”, “Hamden”, “Moustapha”, “Med Yahya”,
“Mahfoudh”, “Ahmedou”, and “Hemeide” who used to study with me. 

“Ridha”, “Mina”, “Saviya”, “Fatimetou”, “Nasra”, “Khadijetou”, “Hanin”,

“Nouran”, “Hawa” and “Kind Kerima” who’s actually one that I’ve
always wanted to know more and better.   We always burst in
laughter when we see each other, and we both don’t know why.  It
actually just happens.   I met those students and many others.  

In a nutshell, I had a great time at university, and I met so many

awesome people. They had definitely made my days, and especially
those who buy me sandwiches and Danone. 

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CHAPTER FUR

“TEACHERS”

We had the privilege to meet so many great teachers

along the way in our study. We got to meet non-teachers as well, like
“Mr. Hadou” for example. He was the CEO of the “American Corner” at
university,  which was a sort of a library for the English department
students in particular. He was more of a big brother to all of us, and he
took on helping us and providing us with the necessary information
we needed about many problematic shenanigans we had concerning
our grades and such stuff.  Also, “Mr. Habib” played a major role in
our nutritious life at the university. He is an old man who owns a small
cafeteria at the corner of the university, and it was where we got to eat
and drink most of the days and of course it was all on “Grampa”. 
We got no penny to spend there… 

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I know students can sometimes be excessively noisy to the

teachers, but some of that is coming from the ways some teachers deal
in with students. For instance, how in the actual hell is the same
answer correct in someone else’s paper and not in mine? Yup! I’m
talking about you teacher “Biha”.  I don’t know what methods he
follows, but they are not just or fair at all. He doesn’t teach in the
classroom, and I mean it, literally. The first time he left a negative
impression about himself was when we had a test in “Vocabulary” and
trust me, he teaches Grammar instead of Vocabulary, and Vocabulary
instead of Grammar.  He gave us a handout, we spent that whole
night revising it, and it was easy and simple. It didn’t even need that
much effort. We solved the few exercises that were in there, and then
we made sure he couldn’t surprise us because he told us that the test
will be some of those exercises in the handout he gave us. And it was;
he was at his word. We came for the test the following day, and the test
was so super familiar because it was some of the exercises that were
in the handout. We were happy because we knew the whole answers.
However, when we had our results, they were disastrous, unexpected,
and unbelievable. 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s were flying everywhere.  It
didn’t make sense at all. How in the hell was that even possible? The
test was easy; we had even had it before.  And the most nonsensical
nonsense about the whole of that was that the same answers are
correct in some papers and not in others. We couldn’t understand on
what standards he graded.  And the funny thing was the nonsensical

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excuses and justifications he made. We used to go to him to complain

about our results, actually, I’m excluded from this narrative. I didn’t go
to him to complain about my result because I knew it would not
change anything. You had to be a hot girl so you could be able to
skyrocket your grades, and I’m not a girl nor hot, but I’m cold, pale,
and ugly.  Therefore, I swallowed my frustration and
smiled, as most of us did.  Normal teachers reveal the points of each
exercise in the test paper and you are able to assess yourself and guess
about what you can have in the test for instance. He was not like that,
no points were revealed in the test paper. And as for those of us, who
went to him complaining about their grades, they received these
nonsensical responds:

“You misspelled this word and you expect getting high grades. This
word equals 15 points on its own, and you didn’t even write it
correctly.”

“You didn’t even do this exercise; this exercise equals 18 points on its
own.”

Note that the same exercise in someone else’s paper is all done
correctly and it equals 4 points only, 5 points in another paper, 6
points in another one, and so on… . 

He was and still the worst teacher I have ever been taught by. He is the
reason why most of students fail and even get expelled due to
repeating the same subject for years. I know most of us suck at

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studying, and suck at English, but it’s more reasonable for me to fail in
any other subject with any other teacher than in any subject with him.
I mean, frankly speaking, any subject he “takes over” is always easy
and simple. The problem is that he feeds on causing students to fail on
purpose.

So, to be honest, and this is to all his type of teachers. If you want
students to fail in a test or an exam just make it difficult for them, and
they will fail instantly. But to make it easy and simple, yet you cause
them to fail intentionally. Well, that is not cool, not even a bit at all.

Moving forward, the rest of the teachers we had were nothing

like him, for instance, the “Bocks”, “Dennis” and “Barbara”. They were
Americans, and we had the privilege being taught by such great
people. Both were hardworking teachers, teachers who teach to put is
simply. In fact, I can’t find words to describe them, their devotion and
determination to help us learn English though we were not helpable.
 “Barbara” was probably the best teacher we had ever been taught
by, actually it’s not probably, I’m very positively sure she is the best
teacher that we have ever been taught by. She taught us for only two
years. And she was teaching us “Writing”, and I have always wanted to
be a writer, and her courses did help me improve my writing a lot. I
know it is still bad, but I believe I can improve it with time and
practice.  Her effective teaching methods and ways made it easy

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for us to understand and interact with the courses better. She even
brought us native speakers, other American teachers and they were
giving us free courses at the “American corner”. And they used to tell
us “If you have a class right now, you can leave”.  And I admit I had
skipped classes just to attend theirs, and I did that because I wasn’t
going to learn from “Biha” or even other teachers more than what I
was going to learn from them.  In a nutshell, “The Bocks” did help
us a lot and we will stay thankful to them forever. 

We had a teacher called “Hadramy”, he is Mauritanian but more

of a British teacher, he had the accent, the attitude, and the kindness.
He taught us “African studies”. And he was that type of a teacher that
values and appreciates his students’ creativity and variety in dealing
with questions. Like, just show him that you understand the question
and you shall be fine.  I remember that time when we had a test,
and it was about making a physical comparison between “Okonkwo”
and his father “Unoka” from the novel “Things fall apart”. We were
supposed to write it in a form of a paragraph, but I didn’t know much
about the novel, so I went for plan B, which was “Drawing”.  As I
said, I didn’t know a lot about the novel, but I knew how both
“Okonkwo” and his father looked like. I had an image of them in my
mind from the teacher’s lectures during courses. I know I could have
written that, but where is the fun in it?  I drew them in the back
of the paper; then I went and gave it to “Hadou”. He was supervising

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with the teacher on that day. I remember he was surprised a bit, and
laughed at it, we both did. Now guess what, I got 11 points in that test.
And I thought I was going to be expelled for that. 

We had another teacher, teacher “Bagga”. He was the head of

the English department. He taught us both “Grammar and Linguistics”.
Unlike “Biha” he is fair in grading and actually teaches for real in the
classroom. With him, you get what you deserve, which is what we all
want. Just getting what we deserve.  I don’t know what is with me
and drawing. I always insert it in almost everything.  I remember
we had a class-work to do in Grammar, and it was about writing a
dialogue between two people using different tenses. Each two people
were supposed to do it together, and it happened that “Fatimetou” was
sitting next to me, so we were a team, even though she did nothing but
looking at me doing the whole work on behalf of both of us.  I
drew her and myself, and wrote the dialogue next to each drawing. It
was hilarious, and we gave it to the teacher. I remember she was so
scared that the teacher would become upset or angry and send us both
out if not expelling us.  He was amused by our work, I mean my
work because she did nothing,  and we safely made it to the end of
that course.  He knew me since that day. I wasn’t able to skip his
classes anymore because he would definitely remember me.  He
even used me and my drawings once as examples in one of his lectures
in “Linguistics”.  Yeah! How about that for a lazy student like me? 

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There was also another time when he gave us researches to present,

which were in the place of the written test. It was also a team work
type. So I ended up teaming up with “Bouha” and “Oumsouleim”, and
they were good students unlike me.  We met after the class, and
pretended to do the research. At the end of the day, I took my part of
the research, and each one of them took hers. “Bouha” prepared very
well, she memorized her part of the research. “Oumsouleim” prepared
but less-well than “Bouha” did, whereas I didn’t prepare well. I didn’t
even have a lot of information about my part, so I had to improvise the
whole thing.  The day of presentation came, my teammates were
ready; I was not.  We redecorated the classroom before we start. I
moved the teacher’s desk to the corner of the classroom, away from
me  and moved the students’ away from the board because I needed
it to illustrate my part of the presentation, as well as, to expand my
time a little bit more.  “Bouha” did great. She performed perfectly,
though she made me laugh. When she tries to say something that she
memorizes, she points her eyes to the ceiling and spit it all out. 
“Oumsouleim” did great as well, though she performed less-perfectly
than “Bouha” did.  I was nothing near them.  I improvised the
whole thing using the board; I started drawing what I was saying, and
tried to explain it, which was what was going to help me spending
more time presenting like my teammates.  I remember my part of
the research was “The theory of sign” for the Swiss linguist,

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“Ferdinand De Saussure”. He still tortures us, though he is dead. 

We had a lot of fun presenting our research that day. 

Another great teacher we had was teacher “Ghadoury”. He is

probably one of the oldest university teachers; I heard he taught most
of our teachers. He was teaching us “Translation”, and his course was
the least in term of attendance. The majority of students used to come
only for tests. And speaking of tests, we usually have to translate an
English text into Arabic, which I never considered an effective method,
but who cared about what I considered.  We study English; therefore
I thought the best way to test our English was not by knowing our level
in Arabic but in English. Instead, we should have had the opportunity
to translate an Arabic text into English to test our level in English. 
However, the type of translation he wanted was word to word type of
translation. And that doesn’t work for both languages due to their
syntactical and morphological structures.  That sounded smart. 
Anyway, the only way to know if your translation is correct is when
you read the text you translated into Arabic and it sounds incorrect,
that is when it is correct. 

One other teacher of ours is teacher “Rashida”. She taught us

for one year only, I guess. She was nice and kind, and she was teaching
us “Listening & Speaking”. We used to have high grades in that subject,

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which helped us passing other subjects as well.  So, thank you
teacher “Rashida” for your generosity.  She was funny and
optimistic; therefore we used to feel comfortable in her class. 
I remember that time when she was testing our ability to listen, which
was part of the subject.  She stood in front of us, and looked in the
other way. She said:

“Those who wear glasses please stand up”.

Then she turned around and only three of us where wearing glasses,
including me. As she was turning around, I took off my glasses, and the
other two students stood up. I knew she knew I was wearing glasses,
so when she saw that I was not standing because I was not wearing
glasses anymore, she smiled.  She turned around to the other way
for another time, and said:

“Those who wear red t-shirts please stand up”.

I was wearing a red t-shirt so I had to stand up because I had no time

to get rid of it before she turns back around. Another student and I
were standing up. She tried to take revenge for what I did with the
glasses the time before, so she told me “I said those who wear red t-
shirts, yours is not completely red, it has other colors on it”. I smiled
and while she was finishing speaking, I took off my t-shirt, because I
had another red t-shirt under it, and it was completely red. When I did
that move, the whole class bursted in laughter, and so did she. .
In a nutshell, she was one of the greatest teachers I had the privilege to

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meet and be taught by. And I’m very sure that I have my fellow
classmates’ agreement on that. 

However, the most generous teacher we have ever been taught

by is “Med Moktar” for sure. We wouldn’t have had that large number
of graduates without him. He gave us many grades more than what we
deserved. He was teaching us many subjects, Multimedia, Fiction,
MLM, Literary approaches, and Psycholinguistics. In addition to other
subjects -he was teaching for other semesters- I don’t remember what
they are called.  His tests and exams were always difficult to
even understand what the questions were about, yet they were the
easiest to pass and with high grades too. His tests and exams were all
about writing a lot. One question with a big space for the answer and
that space is filled with lines, a lot of them.  All he wanted from us
was to fill those lines with words in order to pass that test or exam. It
didn’t matter if we went out of the subject; all it mattered was filling
the lines with words.  He used to give us all the extra points for
no reason, at least not from our part.  All I can say for him is “Thank
you very much, we owe you a lot”. 

Now, this teacher is definitely one of my favorites, though he

always gives me low grades. He is teacher “Bakar”. He was teaching us
“Reading” in S3 and “20th century novels” in S6. The best thing about

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him is that he is very strict, modern, and teaches seriously.  I will

talk about both of his subjects, “Reading” for instance, which is
normally the subject that is supposed to be easier than the subject of
“Speaking”, right? Because all it is about is just reading.  Most if not
all of us were better in reading than speaking, and that is not for
discussion. It’s a fact.  Yet, we had bad grades in “Reading”. He used
to teach us the novel “Animal Farm” by “George Orwell”, and we used
to read it in the classroom, it was a reading class after all. Anyway, the
test was oral. . Now, who hears this for the first time will say it was
easy, well, we said that too and guess what, it was easy indeed, but we
didn’t get points for anything we did no matter what it was.  He
was very academic in his teaching style, which was very difficult for us
to cope with. Another best thing about teacher “Bakar” is that he is fair
and frank. He treats us all the same; he gives us all low grades despite
whatsoever we do.  We just didn’t understand him and his
grading method, or what he wanted from us. Moving swiftly on, most
of the students were feeling nervous and anxious in his presence. 
In the test, we sit face to face with him, and he tells us to open up a
book –a random book he chooses from the library- on a page number
he chooses and we start reading. Once the reading is over, he starts
asking us to explain some words of his own choice from the page we
were reading. As I said, he is very frank and honest. If you suck, he will
tell you what’s up.  For instance, I remember some of his frank
opinions about some students. Once, there was a student who didn’t

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read very well, he was stuttering in his reading, so he stopped him,

and asked him to explain some words and he couldn’t do that so he
told him “You see this book, choose any word you want and explain it
for me”. The student froze and couldn’t do any of that, and I don’t
blame him because that was cold.  Another time, it was a foreign
girl, maybe not that foreign, I think she was Moroccan, and I don’t
remember her name. She wasn’t good at English; she was unable to
read, nor to explain any word. He told her “Why didn’t you stay in your
country”.  One last “incident” I remember was that he told many
students that he was ready to help them to transfer to another major
because English was not meant for them to study.  However,
when it was the exam, we protested in front of the amphitheatre and
refused to do the exam, for there was no point of doing it since our test
grades were bad and the exam’s wouldn’t be any different. 
Eventually, we ended up having zeroes in the exam. 

Moving forward, the second subject he taught us was “20th

century novel”. We depended upon the same novel “Animal farm”. The
test questions were always what the main idea of the novel was, or
stating what it was all about in few lines. This subject’s test was
written. And I remember we did it, but got low grades, which was very
normal.  The following week, he repeated the test for us. He said
none of us made it in the first test, and that was why he was kind and
generous to let us redo the test again.  And because it was a second
chance for all of us, we took it as a shot at redemption.  We were

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optimistic and ready to do our best, until the happening happened.



“George Orwell?”

That was what he wrote on the whiteboard, and we thought it was easy
for a second. Note that we didn’t study anything about the author; we
were just reading his novel, literally.  We asked him if we were
supposed to write a biography about the author or what exactly that
we should do, and we got no responses. He snapped! And then said:

“This is a test question, and it is popular in all universities around the

world.” 

Then he added:

“You can even use your phones and Google it if you want, because
nothing and no one in the skies or on earth will be able to help you
answering this question, only you yourselves can.” 

After that he took his chair, and sat outside at the classroom door:

“You have even until four; I will sit here and tell the next class to find
another classroom for their course.” he said, mockingly. 

We didn’t hesitate using our phones.  I actually didn’t use mine, for
A) - I never wanted to cheat, and B) - I didn’t have internet.  Even
with uncle Google’s help in that test, we couldn’t get to satisfy him with
our answers. We still got low grades after all.  I remember I left

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quickly, for I knew I wouldn’t get any points more than the usual. So, at
least I didn’t lose my time and my effort.  That was all for the test,
and as for the exam, we didn’t do well as well; therefore we were given
extra points from the administration. It helped most of us pass the
exam and even graduate.  To wrap it up, “Bakar” is one of the best
teachers at university in terms of Academic teaching; his only
misfortune was that he had to teach primitive people from stone ages
like us. 

An additional strict teacher we were taught by was “Taleb”. 

I don’t know his full name; this was the name we called him by. He
taught us Grammar, Poetry, and “something” African novels.  He was
very nice, he just didn’t show it. He was also funny, but in a cold way. 
I remember that time when our classmate “Chiva” came late to class,
so she knocked on the door and entered then said her famous saying:
“May I come in?” and he replied “You are already in” . And
another time, it was hot and at midday. I had just come back from the
resto, passed by the fountain and poured water over my head, and I
was late for the class. I knocked on the door, opened it, and waited for
his permission to get in. He let me in, but called me to stand beside
him in front of the whole class for a moment and I was wet, and water
was running all over my clothes. Then, he asked me where I was, and I
said that I was at the resto. Students laughed, I laughed, and he
laughed too from the inside for sure because he didn’t show it. 

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It was hilarious.  He was one of the amazing teachers we had

been taught by.

And here are some honorable mentions. 

We were taught by many teachers, amongst them was, “Beina” who
taught us in the first year, he was a great young teacher with a clear
teaching strategies and methods.

“Mariem” also was one of the best teachers we had been

taught by. She taught us for one semester only, but she left a positive
impression about herself on us. 

“Couloubaly” was a great teacher as well, and he taught us one

semester also. He was a nice guy and fair when it comes to grading,
though he wasn’t tolerance against cheaters. 

“Jueves”, our Spanish teacher, we never knew his name, we

called him “Jueves” which means “Thursday” because his class was on
Thursday, and each time he writes the date, he writes “Jueves”.  No
offence intended by the way. He was a nice teacher, though we didn’t
understand 99.99% of his talk in Spanish. However we managed to
pass that subject.

“Dr. Henda” was a very nice teacher; he used to make us

memorize definition of some terms in linguistics, phonology, and
syntax. I never liked revising, let alone memorizing.  I always get low

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grades in his subjects, and it was not that I didn’t understand them, no,
I did understand them, but the problem was that he wanted the same
definitions he made us memorize, which was also making it easier to
cheat in his tests and exams. I mean, you could just copy the answer
from anyone or from your own resources -if it happened and you came
prepared- and he couldn’t figure out that you had even cheated. 
He was always reminding us of his rank, like; he didn’t say his name
without initiating it by “Dr”.  In the class, you had him teaching and
explaining the lesson for a minute, and lecturing about his teaching
adventures that he went through in other countries the next minute.
He was a very nice and lovely teacher though. 

“Lauren” was a great teacher as well. She taught us “Phonetics”

in S4, and she was always smiling. She makes you want to listen to her,
and she explains very well. Even though some of us could not cope
with her native English, it was amazing just to hear and be taught by a
native speaker. She was one of my favorite teachers, though she might
not remember me, for she taught us only for that semester. But, it was
a great experience for me and my classmates.

“OumKelthoum” who would become the head of the English

department later on, she taught us mainly British subjects, such as the
history of Great Britain and the British Drama. She was “Benz’s”
favorite teacher; he used to be the only one of the Resto-Squad to
attend her classes, and then he explains the whole thing for us later. 
She was one of the best teachers to teach us.

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“Dr. Med Salek” also was a great teacher who taught us few times,
but he was absent most of the time because he was the mayor of
(Leksar) county.

Those were some of the teachers we were taught by, in addition to

others I totally forgot about, but they all have my respect.

I saved the best for the last. She is my top favorite teacher;
teacher “Saviya”. She teaches the final semesters only, and I’ve always
been hearing about her from the seniors, and how she is a great
teacher, which turned out true. I’ve always hated boring classes, but
hers were not. She keeps you involved in the class, and you feel you’re
interested in paying attention to her. She was very honest and frank
with us, which were the most important two virtues a teacher must
possess to be my favorite.  What I liked about her was that when you
suck at English, she looks at you dead in the eyes and tells you that you
suck at it.  And that is actually very important in personal
development.  If we keep getting good grades for free, and we
suck but no one is telling us that, we will not progress. And I can’t see
why students get upset or embarrassed when the teacher shows them
their weak points. For me, I probably know when I suck at something,
but I also love when someone else tells me, it makes me surer about it.
She is very strict, serious, and kind at the same time. She really wants
to help us, but we are unhelpable. We are incapable of being helped. 

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We still suck at English as a language, let alone philosophical subjects

she teaches us such as Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Culture and
representation, and Research methodology. She is a very hardworking
teacher; she explains and lectures a lot in courses. She is also an open-
minded teacher. She has her own rules and standards. It is very easy to
validate her subjects, yet it is hard at the same time.  As she says:

“If you want to pass in my subject, you have to attend all the classes,
participate, and most importantly, show me that you are interested in
my class.”

Now, isn’t that the easiest thing to do to pass? Yes, it is. Speaking from
experience I’m excluded from. 

That was all one had to do to pass with her and many did. I wasn’t one
of those, though I passed, but only by my exams, my tests were terrible
because I wasn’t regularly attending her classes, nor participating
during the ones I attended, let alone showing her my interest. 
Therefore, I never succeeded in tests; I only did in exams because they
were out of her rules and laws’ jurisdiction.  Points didn’t matter
to her, she could give you tons of them, and all you had to do was just
to follow her laws. And I don’t understand why most of students hate
her for assuring them that they suck at English.  Once, she said that
we couldn’t even express ourselves in English, which was very true. 
Trust me, I know it can be frustrating doing your best in her test and
not passing it due to your lack of attendance, participating, and

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interest in her classes, even though you deserve to pass. And I know
that it can even be more frustrating when you see others you’re better
than; getting extra points for free and you’re not even getting what you
deserve (from your perspective, and not from hers. From hers you’re
not even interested so you don’t even deserve to pass). 
And the best thing about her is that despite being serious and strict,
she gives extra points all the time, but she doesn’t give the usual and
ordinary extra points, no, hell no, and a capital NO.  
She gives extra large extraordinary extra points.  If you are
regular in your attendance, participating, and showing that you are
interested in her classes you might get up to 19 points or even 20
points. In other words, you don’t even have to do the exam to pass her
subjects. In fact, you should be banned from doing the exam because
there is no point of doing it at this point.  So basically, I was
happy being taught by her, and I really appreciate what she did for us.
She is a great teacher, and my favorite for being honest and frank. 

It was an honor and a great experience being taught by such great

teachers and all I say to them is thank you for everything, and forgive
me and my classmates the trouble we caused you, it was intended
though. Yes, I said “was”, it is not a typo.  Now, if you didn’t laugh at
that, then it is probably because you don’t know what “typo” means.


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CHAPTER FIVE

“CHEATING”

Teachers call it “Cheating”, students call it “Late revising”, and

I call it “Call it what you want”, it doesn’t really matter.  I never
liked it; I never even wanted to cheat just for the sake of passing a test
or an exam that I could pass with just revising for it.  I didn’t like
revising either, but the five minutes revision before a test or an exam
was my favorite. I don’t even know why someone would cheat just to
get their hands on a diploma in something they don’t even know. 
I mean, the paper itself won’t be the one doing the work, you will be. 
So, love what you learn, otherwise you will not learn it. And this time,
I’m actually speaking from an experience I’m included in. 

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Well, cheating for the sake of helping others was sort of an

okay thing with me, though I always wanted them to pass with their
effort and on their own, but the environment was not giving much help
in that area.  It started with me way back in elementary school. 
I used to be the first in my class, which kind of, put a lot of hopes on
me, I would say. My classmates were considering me as if I was their
second chance, or their passing ticket to the next class. I never
hesitated helping anyone of them whenever I could, though I really
wanted them to rely on themselves and even give it a try. But nah! I do
the work, we all pass, and we are all happy. That was the deal. 

Cheating materials have developed. Back in the days; I used to

do it verbally, or write it in a paper and give it to someone, or simply,
swap our papers.  However, nowadays, I still do all of that in addition
to the multiple uses of smart phones in this field.  Despite detesting
cheating so bad, I enjoyed doing it.  I know, it is weird to enjoy doing
what you hate.  But that was the truth. I remember when my friend
“Pélé” used to send me messages (SMS) with the questions and I send
him the answers back. He used to get the higher grade in English, but
he doesn’t attend the class on the day of the results, for he was afraid
that the teacher might question him.  There were also many
occasions such as that, when I helped others to pass. However, the
most enjoyable ones were at the university.  I wasn’t the only one
though, I had my own cheating squad, it was me, “Benz”, and “Khalil”.
We had our own ways of sending the answers, mine were taking so

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long and people didn’t like them very much, though they were very
effective.  I used to write different answers for each person, and
that used to take time, and the cheaters inside were not patients. 
I will refer to them as “Cheaters” because that was what they were. 
“Benz” and “Khalil” had their own cheating method; it was less
effective than mine with some teachers. It was very simple, fast, and
the cheaters inside loved it.  Am I hallucinating, or the words
“Cheaters” and “Teachers” are made up of the same letters? 
Now, how about that for a coincidence, huh? 

Back to cheating, “Benz” and “Khalil” depended upon the

method of “One for all” which meant sending the same thing to
everybody. It had actually worked with some teachers sometimes, but
not all of the teachers were careless or would kindly let that pass. 
I remember I used to tell them “You can’t send the same thing for
everyone” because the answer for the question “What do you think
about such and such?” is not supposed to be the same for everyone. 
And I still remember the kinky look on their faces. Whenever I told
them that, they looked at me and said “Goodness received”. It’s funnier
in Arabic though.  It always makes me laugh when I recall that
one time when the S4 students had a test in “Phonetics” and there was
a question about sound production, which meant how the sound was
made through human organs such as lungs, vocal folds, oral and nasal
cavities or something like that.  I don’t remember those lessons
anymore.  More importantly, “Khalil” went to Google and googled

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the whole thing. He didn’t even bother himself reading what he found,
he just copied the first thing he set his eyes on and sent it to everyone.
And I was with him at that moment, I told him “Yo! Amigo, send me
that, I will make some changes in it and send it to others”. And he was
like, “Yo! No problem”.  When I received the package, I read it. 
Which is something I actually do, I read what I am going to send before
sending it.  And when I read it, it was about sound production, which
was what the test was about. But, as I was reading it, it turned out that
it was all about another type of sound production, it didn’t concern
human speech sound. Instead, it was about loud speakers, plasma TVs,
cell phones’ speakers, and electronic speakers and sounds majorly. 
And the problem of the cheaters we helped was that they were useless.
They could do nothing but “copy and paste”.  They couldn’t even
recognize that the info they received had nothing to do with the
subject at hands.  When I told “Khalil” about it, it was already too
late. They had already received it. Therefore, he told me not to say
anything. Most of the cheaters he sent that to, failed big in that subject.

“Don’t tell them it is our mistake, just let them, and when they
complain about their grades tell them it wasn’t because of the info we
sent them, but it was because they all wrote the same thing. They
should have changed it a bit.” He told me. 

That wasn’t the only time, it happened many times in many occasions.
The atmosphere during tests is nothing like the one of the exams. 
Tests were easy to cheat in, for the loose of the supervision. Only one

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teacher was supervising, we could do a lot of our cheating operations

and tasks.  For instance, teacher “Biha” was our favorite when it
comes to performing highly wanted cheating missions.  He causes
everyone to fail because of some nonsensical nonsense; therefore we
used to enter the test with the 1st year students just to help them pass
his subjects. And to get acceptable points, you had to do no mistakes in
your test. And it was an easy thing to do since his tests were easy and
simple. The only problem was in his grading.  So, we entered the test
undisguised since we never attended his classes when he was teaching
us, and so did most of the students because there was no point of that.
Our mission was to help as much students as possible.  The plan was
simple; students had to write nothing in their papers. And whenever
one of us completes one we swap it with the student next to us and
that student leaves and leaves his or her place for another student to
take.  That was our plan, and it worked. The ones we helped got fair
points, though they deserved the full mark. But something was better
than nothing. Now, I know you’re probably not wondering how we
leave the test without being caught, but I will tell you anyway. 
With other teachers we usually don’t enter unless we are entering the
test on behalf of someone that we can write their names and submit
the paper with no trouble.  However, with “Biha” we could leave
without leaving a trace because we are professionals.  In fact, that is
not entirely true.  He actually used to leave the classroom once the
time is over; he doesn’t care if there are still some students or not. 

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He just grabs his stuff and leaves, which made it easy for us to wait for
him to leave then we leave as if we were not even there. 
Even though there was one time when he didn’t do that, which was
very odd.  That time, it was only me and “Benz”. Because he didn’t
leave when the time was over, we had to submit our papers.  He even
told the students left to bring him their papers.  We didn’t think it
through anyway.  I wrote a random name and the frequency of
(Spacetoon) and left.  “Benz” wrote an old footballer’s name -it was
an arabic name though- and wrote his father’s car number and left.
 It was hilarious. 

Another time with the same teacher as well, and the 1st year
students had a test. But he told them it was postponed until tomorrow;
therefore “Mina” left home. And I was about to leave. I was about to get
in the bus, when “Mariem” came to me saying that she was looking for
me everywhere.  I asked her why, and she said that their test was no
longer postponed, it was at that time.  “Mina” called me and said that
she had already left, so I had to do the test on behalf of her. It was the
first time I enter a test on behalf of a girl, so I wasn’t sure how I was
going to submit her paper with her name on it to the teacher. 
(I really need to stop calling him a teacher because he is not).   
Anyway, I swapped my paper with both “Mariem & Minetou”, and then
I told them to leave. I helped few others were near me, and went to
him to submit the paper. He took it, and read the name with a kinky
voice: “Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, and Mina…”he repeatedly said.

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“No, it is Miin, Miiin” I said with a fair amount of audacity in my facial

expressions.  He put it down with the rest pile of papers, and then I
left outside and laughed out loud. It was hilariously awesome. 

Still, my favorite mission was that time when I entered to his

three tests on a row, and on the same day. I entered for the first one at
8:30, and I did what I usually do. I finished the first paper, then gave it
to a student and told him to leave. Another student took his place, and
I did the same. I did a lot of papers on that day.  After that test, I
entered back again at 10:00 for another test. I did the same thing as
well; I kept doing papers and swapping them with students left, right,
back, and forth.  Then I came back for the third test at 11:30, and I
did the same thing for the third time. I kept helping others, especially
my friend “Hassen” who was supposed to not even have that subject,
but you know how it is with “Biha”.  The plan was to help as many
students as possible, but more importantly making sure to help my
friend “Hassen” out. So, I made him sit next to me, and I made him his
paper first. I gave it to him and told him to leave, and he did. But when
he gave “Biha” the paper, the last one just took it and put it aside. 
Then, he gave “Hassen” another test paper and sat him in the front row
in the first table. That was not a part of our plan,  however I kept
swapping papers with every student I could reach until the last one. 
I ended up with no paper left because the one I had was meant to be
for my other friend “Ahmed” who called me and told me to do the test
on behalf of him since he was not going to come. I was stuck; I had only

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one paper between my hands and two friends I needed to rescue. 

At the very last moment, I decided to specify the paper I had for
“Ahmed”, then go and sit next to “Hassen” and do him his paper as
well. Unfortunately, the time was not allowing me doing all of that, so I
told “Hassen” to not submit another paper, for “Biha” wanted him to
submit a second paper , so he could eliminate him because he had
submitted two papers.  We ended up not submitting that second one.
I submitted the one I had for “Ahmed”, then “Hassen” and I left
together. At the end of the day, “Biha” ended up grading “Hassen’s”
paper and he validated that subject.  I did so many cheating
missions with “Biha”, and all of them were successfully successful. 

Another teacher I really didn’t want to perform my cheating

missions with, but I ended up doing it was teacher “Saviya”.  There
was that one time when she gave us a surprising quiz, but only for few
of us and it was at the end of the course.  She dismissed students and
only few of us she named stayed there. I guess we were around six or
seven students. We didn’t expect it, therefore “Grampa” was sitting in
the front, “Pato” was somewhere there too, and “Braza” and I were
sitting in the back. I needed to help “Grampa” out, for he was going to
write nothing.  So, I grabbed my papers and went to sit next to
“Grampa”. And I did that while she stood there and kept watching. She
didn’t say a word. Plus, I had no other choice, “Grampa” was there
alone, helpless and hopeless.  I helped him to write things, as

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well as I helped “Braza” because he kept nagging on me the whole

time.  lucky them, she received many phone calls that day, and she
left outside many times to take those phone calls, which was in our
favor.  Actually, not really.  She saw and knew about
everything we did, so she didn’t give us any points.  I remember I
got 2 or something like it, and so did “Grampa” 

Her tests were very short in duration, only one hour or less in fact. 
And I used to come and leave in a very short time, which she took as a
sign that I was not interested in her class, which led me to getting low
grades.  But little did she know was that I had to leave that fast; I had
to leave because fifty percent of the people there would only write
what I would send them. That was the reason why I used to leave in
that short time. 

Another subject of hers was “Research”, and it was about doing

researches basically.  I remember I did so many researches for so
many people. I did many in my first “last year”, and nearly fifteen
researches in my second “last year” when I repeated it.  And I am
very sure that she had noticed that, I mean, the same style and my
name “Ben” was involved in most of their Acknowledgements. 
“And I thank my friend Ben for helping me….” That was a line she must
have seen repeatedly.  Cheating with her wasn’t really effective, for
she knew when someone cheated. 

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Unlike “Saviya”, teacher “Ghadoury” didn’t notice when we

cheated.  I remember when we had a test in “Translation”, and I was
there doing the test on behalf of three people. And my plan in that test
was simple, I translate the whole text then people give me their smart
phones and I take pictures of the text for them then give them their
phones back. I was being handed phones from everywhere.  After
that, and when I finished the three papers, I was thinking of a way to
get them all submitted to the teacher. Eventually, I submitted the first
paper, and then gave my cousin –or that’s what she claims- the second
paper and she submitted it, and then I came back again and submitted
the third one. 

I had many favorite cheaters, for instance my friend from high

school “Babiye” who used to be a good and hardworking student. 
He used to revise his lessons well, and he used to pass the tests and the
exams on his own and with his own effort.  However, when he
transferred from the institution to university and to the English
department with us, he faced a lot of obstacles and setbacks. And he
failed in most subjects.  He didn’t use to cheat, but he decided to
change that.  First, he came to me saying that I got to do the whole
exam on behalf of him, because he couldn’t afford repeating that same
semester.  It was okay with me; I helped him pass his exam. 
Then in the second year, he started cheating.  Step by step, he
became a professional cheater. He was using whatever he could carry

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with him to the exam, so he could make sure to pass.  And I added
him to my “Sending” list.  He was one of my favorite cheaters; he
could deal with what he received in a very professional and effective
way. 

Another favorite cheater of mine is definitely “Sagida”. She is a

highly trained cheater.  She takes a little time to send me a picture of
the test and that of the exam as well. Then she goes like, “Ben”, please
hurry up, the time is slipping away”.  I send her the answers, and
she pastes them on her paper and leaves. She meets me after the test
or the exam with a wide smile on her face, then she says “Let’s go to
FST, you deserve a sandwich and a bottle of Danone.”  And I say
“Well, now we’re talking”.  But that was not the best of her
performances. She did a Tom Cruise “mission: impossible” type of
missions in the resit exam once. I was there, doing the exam on behalf
of “Grampa”. She was there, and she had got 03 in the test, so she
needed to get 17 in that exam that day. The plan was that I do the
whole thing, and then we swap our papers, and all she had to do was
writing her name and her ID number. That didn’t sound like a hard
thing to do, right? Well, I wrote it all, the paper was ready. I was ready
to swap our papers, but one supervisor knew we were not acting
normal, so he moved me to the row behind the one we were sitting in,
and precisely to the corner seat opposite to hers. I could see her fear,
frustration, and misfortune.  But somehow, I kept the amount of
optimism I had as it was. She was whispering:

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“Ben, what are we going to do now?”

“It is fine” I said, and it was nothing near fine. It was bad, very bad. 

“Just try to move to these seats… if I can just reach you….?” I added.

All the teachers were standing in the front, and we were few. I took a
look at her, and she was still there sitting in her seat. A moment later, I
took another look at her, and she was not sitting there anymore. 
Yup! She was gone. Another moment later, and I could hear her voice.

“Ben…Ben…Ben!” She was whispering. 

I tried to locate where the voice was coming from, and it was coming
from under my feet. Yup, it is what you heard, or read, more properly.
She was under my feet whispering my name. She had crawled all the
way from her seat at the other side of the row, to my seat at the other
side of it. I couldn’t help myself but to burst in laughter, out loud. 
I mean, I wasn’t expecting her doing that after all.  The teachers
looked at me; therefore I had to lay my head down so they don’t notice
my big teeth.  They looked away, and continued their talk. I took
my paper and gave it to her, and she gave me hers in return.  She
was crawling back to her seat, when she noticed that our pens were
different. Hers was blue, while mine was black, as usual.  She turned
back, crawling to my feet. She gave me her pen, and I gave her mine in
return. The students between us lifted their feet up so she can pass. 
She crawled back to her seat, and popped up there as if she was there

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all the time. She had her paper ready with answers, all it was left was
that she writes her name and her ID number. However, she spent five
minutes before doing so, shaking.  After that, she left, and I
stayed there doing “Grampa’s” paper. I did it, and then left too. 
I met her outside, and we laughed a lot. It was funny. Oh! And she got
that 17 she needed. She validated that subject, as well as “Grampa” too.
She bought me a bottle of Danone and a Sandwich as well. 

The exams have more intensive atmosphere than the tests do.
The pressure is heavy, and many teachers supervising.  The exam
usually takes place in the “Amphitheatre 4” or the “War field” in our
words.  We had our own plan, for instance, it used to start at 14h to
16h. “Grampa” and “JB” were the ones who enter at the beginning to
take their positions. Once they have their hands on the exam paper,
they send it to me and “Benz” instantly. I don’t look at my phone until I
leave, because I would be there with them.  “Benz” would be outside
checking the exam questions. If it is easy, he sends it to “Grampa” and
“JB” then he comes in laughing. And if it is not; he checks for the
answers and comes in prepared. And so does “Khalil”. They made sure
they leave out of the University for Good.  And while I’m in there, I
usually sit next to “Grampa” and behind “Varha”. She is one of my
favorite cheaters. You see! There are some cheaters that are useless;
they don’t help you help them. If I’m not swapping papers, then I’m
dictating the answers for sure. And dictating needs one that can write

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quickly, and basically knows how words are spelt. I don’t have time
telling someone to write the word (Pumpkin) for instance, and they
ask me to spell it for them. Like, I’m a busy guy, I work with time, and I
can’t waste it spelling every word I say.  So, “Varha” sits in front
of me. And she is not bad in spelling, plus she doesn’t really care about
it, she writes what she hears and that’s it.  And when she lays her
head back and I lay mine forward, I am able to tell her everything and
she can hear it all and she writes it down. And for your information,
I’m that type of a guy who can’t resist involving himself in any funny
situation and even if it is during the exam.  There was that one
time when I was dictating the answers on “Varha” who was sitting in
front of me and a teacher saw me so he stood next to me, which made
me stop talking instantly.  She didn’t notice him, so she kept
whispering:

“Ben, Ben, hurry up! Tell me the second one”.

I found that very funny, so I involved myself with telling her:

“Varha, the teacher is standing here next to me, just wait until he
leaves me alone and I will tell you the whole exam.” 

I said that out loud.  She looked back and saw the teacher, then she
bursted in laughter, I bursted in laughter, and the teacher bursted in
laughter too.  After a little while and just when we stopped
laughing:

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“Ok! You go and sit over there” The teacher referred to me. 

That was one to remember. Plus, at least we had fun. 

There was also another funny one to remember. It was during

the exam, and only God knows how “Benz” caused a pressure and a
threat for the supervisors.  I can’t forget that time when he was
sitting next to me, and “Mari” sat next to him, while “Meyma” sat next
to me. And our plan was to swap papers with both girls.  I was
supposed to swap the paper with “Meyma”, she was sitting next to me
after all. So I took a quick glance, in fact it was more of a 360 degree
scan.  And at the moment all teachers were not looking at me, I
swapped our papers in a split of a second.  “Benz” saw that move I
did right there with “Meyma”, so he tried to do the same with “Mari”. 
Little thing he didn’t know was that I was just lucky.  So, he swapped
their papers, and few seconds later “BokoHaram” was standing at us.
 He saw “Benz” swapping papers; he took both of the papers, and
both got zeroes in that subject. And it wasn’t the only time “Benz” was
caught due to his malicious deeds.  There was that time when it was
“Spanish exam” and he was the only one people relied on to help them
with Spanish since he was the best at it.  He swapped papers with
almost everyone in his row. And there was a teacher who passed by
him multiple times and he saw him filling his paper with words, like,
his paper was really full. Few minutes later, the same teacher passed

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by “Benz” again, but that time he had a blank paper.  This was very
normal for us since he was swapping papers with everyone he could
reach.  The teacher was surprised, for he passed by him few minutes
ago and his paper was full, then after few minutes later it was empty.

“Where is your original paper?” said the teacher.

“This is my original paper” said “Benz”.

“Don’t! I passed by you before and your paper was full, but now it is
empty, how did that happen?” Asked the teacher.

“Well, this is my paper. That is all I got to say” said “Benz”, with a fair
amount of audacity on his suspicious face. 

Eventually, the teacher took him to the “Attitude adjustment” board,

which was made of other teachers who take on investigating with
suspected students.  And what made me laugh that day was the fact
that when they asked him about his original paper he told them:

“This is the only paper I had; you can even check everyone’s papers” 

And trust me, if they had checked anyone looking for “Benz’s” paper,
they would have found it just by looking at anyone’s paper from that
row. Like, it didn’t matter who because all of them had papers with
“Benz’s” handwriting.  I laughed a lot that day, and the other day as
well. When we had an exam and “Seiga” was following “Benz” around
and everywhere he went.  A teacher saw that, so he took “Benz” and
sat him somewhere else. Few moments later, and “Seiga” was sitting

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next to “Benz”.  The teacher took him again and sat him in another
place, and “Seiga” followed him there again.  Every time that teacher
took “Benz” and sat him somewhere, there “Seiga” would be.  The
teacher was mad as hell.

“I will make sure you don’t sit close to him no matter what it takes”
That teacher yelled at “Seiga”. 

“Benz” was a trouble maker. They had to sit him alone, isolate him
from everybody, and guard him very well so he couldn’t help anyone
to cheat. To them, he was a threat. 

Just like “Benz”, I was a threat too.  The only difference was
that I was a “Ninja”.  I was very silent and calm, except for that one
time, and during the exam when a teacher saw me talking to “Tehany”
so he sat me somewhere else, then I was talking to someone else, and
by “talking” I mean the useful talking. 

“Can’t you stop talking, this is an exam?” He told me.

“Exactly, which is the only place where talking is useful.” I said with a
smile on my face. 

I used to have many names because I replaced many people in

tests and exams. And there was that one crazy time when I received a

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late call at night from my friend “Sadam”. He said that he was out of
the city, and he had an exam the following day. I had to do the exam on
behalf of him, but that day was not cool.  I woke up late, and I went to
the bus station. I couldn’t find any buses there, so I took a taxi to “Big
Market”. I couldn’t find buses there too. And I was late for the exam;
for it had started at 10:00 and it was already 10:13 when I checked my
hand watch. I had until 11:00 before being not allowed to enter for the
exam, so I started walking.  While walking for few minutes, a guy
stopped for me in his fancy “Rav4” car, and it was the first time I ride
that car, I usually see it when it is about to hit me while crossing the
road.  He wasn’t going to the university though, for he was going to
the airport instead. I rode with him, and he dropped me off at the “tea
tray” crossroads. From there, I could see the university. It was in front
of me, though it was far. I took a selfie with that “Tea tray” crossroads,
and then I started walking.  And it was really weird. I could see the
faculty in front of me, but as I got closer and closer to it, it moved back
away from me. You would think it was close, but it was far.  When
I was there at the end, it was almost 11:00. I made it to the exam, but
barely. Two or three more minutes and I would have stayed out. 
I entered for the exam, and sat in the front row. However there were
no exam papers left, they had run out. So, they had to send someone to
the administration to get me one more paper. The problem was that
“Bagga” himself was the one who brought me that paper.  I had to
put on my hood on my head, and lay my head down so he doesn’t

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recognize me. And trust me; he knows me, my face, my name, and
probably my family too.  I was lucky that day, for I didn’t get
caught.  Eventually, I did the exam very quickly, and left home. 

My classmates had always wanted to know my real name, but I

never wanted them to know it.  However, there was that one time
when teacher “Saviya” called me by my real name, and I had to stand
up. Everyone was looking at me with suspiciously surprising faces. Do
you want to know why? Probably not, but I’m telling you anyway. 
It was because another teacher, teacher “Dr. Henda” had called me by
another name in the previous class.  It was “Grampa’s” real name
because I was attending that course on behalf of him, for that he
sucked at it. That in addition to many other names I was called by in
various occasions.  They were confused; each one knew me by a
different name. Therefore I told them all to call me by my name “Ben”.


Back to my favorite cheaters, another favorite cheater of mine

was “Chocola”. She didn’t use to cheat, but failure dragged her to that
path.  She became a highly trained cheater. The funny thing about
her is that when I ask her why she cheats in tests and exams she says:

“I used to revise and study hard, yet I fail. And I saw bad students
succeed and pass just because they cheated in their tests and exams. I
couldn’t let that pass, so I went with the flow.” 

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She used to send me pictures of her tests and exams, and I send her
the answers.  She also used to help me doing test on behalf of two or
three and even four people sometimes. For instance, when more than
one person asks me to do the test on behalf of them, I just call her. 
There was that one time where she missed a test, so we had to do
something about that because she failed in that subject’s exam. 
What I did was something I did for the first time. I had a picture of the
test that was sent to me before, so I opened my laptop and created a
matched copy of the test paper. I printed it out, and wrote the answers
then graded it. I gave her 17 points for a test she didn’t even do. 
I took the paper and placed it under the carpet for that whole night so
it looks a little bit old. I was going to pour some tea on it, but I didn’t. 
I took it to her the following morning, and we wrote a claim for the
administration that they have made a mistake in her grades.  And
somehow, they fixed it, and gave her those 17 points and she validated
that subject. We laughed a lot after that. We even did it other couple
times for other subjects as well, and it worked. I even did the same for
other students too. 

“Braza” for instance, is also a highly trained cheater.  He

did so much cheating that he could have won a noble prize for cheating
if it was there. He spends his nights planning, plotting, and preparing
for cheating, yet he is always complaining about the grades he gets. 
He usually brings all the necessary equipment he thinks he might need
during a test or an exam. He brings his smart wannabe “itel” phone

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and his small Samsung too, along with tiny papers filled with
information. The plan is that I send him the answers on his smart
phone, and SMS’s on his small phone in case there is no internet
network. And the papers are the backup plan of his. 

Yet, my one and only favorite cheater of all time is definitely

“Grampa”. He sucks at all subjects, except for the ones that need
memorizing. He can cope with those. He is a hardworking guy. 
He memorizes what he can, and cheats the rest.  He makes me do
previous tests and exams for him, for they might be repeated for us
since the teachers are still the same. And it did happen.  We had
several tests and exams repeated; ones that we had done before just in
case.  Plus, making me do them is the only way I revise.  I don’t
revise on purpose.  “Grampa” doesn’t want anything but to get
out and get rid of the university, so he makes sure to send us the test
paper and that of the exam. Before he enters for a test or an exam, he
calls the whole squad, “JB”, “Pato”, “Benz” and me myself. “JB” always
complains about being bothered by “Grampa” for waking him up to be
a part of the crime.  Unlike “JB”, “Benz” doesn’t sleep at night. He is a
night owl, a bat, or even funnier a night creature.  Therefore at
many times he sleeps when we need him at day.  But he does a good
job when he is awake. As for “Pato”, he gives a valuable help when he
is present. He is a busy guy and that is why he is not available every
time. And as for me, I am actually the most loyal one in the squad to

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“Grampa” because I am always there with him whenever he has a test

or an exam.  Though it might be because they have graduated and I
have not.  But that is not important right now.  As I said, he
gathers the whole squad and once he gets his hands on the test paper
or the exam paper, he takes a picture of it and he sends it to us. Then,
we start working. Each one of us takes on one of the exercises and gets
the whole thing done quickly.  I organize the things they do, and
sometimes make some changes in it for him so it doesn’t look obvious
that he has cheated.  And another reason for me being there with
him is that sometimes I have to replace him in a test or in an exam. 
Though he is a very good plotter and planner; He brings with him his
cheating equipments, which are usually a set of stuff such as three cell
phones and a pile of papers.  He has a small phone for messages
in case his two smart phones are not a much help in that day due to
weak network or internet. And most of the time, he uses his small
phone to receive my messages. The big and smart ones are only for
taking pictures of the test and the exam papers. He also brings his
mini-tiny pile of papers filled with necessary information and fully
corrected tests and exams. Sometimes when the teachers repeat one of
their tests or exams, he might actually have it in his papers.  And it
happened many times.  Yeah! What a lucky guy. The best thing
about being with “Grampa” at university is that when he cheats very
well in a test or in an exam, he comes out looking happy and smiling.
Translation: he buys me a lot of food that day. 

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When “Benz” and “Khalil” graduated, they retired from our

“Cheating Company”. I became the CEO of it, and the only employee
there too.  They weren’t intending helping others anymore. 
“Khalil” went to the USA, and “Benz” was busy looking for a way to get
himself out of this country. Students usually leave their countries and
travel abroad for study purposes. “Benz” was different. When we ask
him why he wants to leave, he says: “I don’t want to die here in this
country.”  Basically, you can take him to another country and
shoot him down; it would be okay with him as long as he is not in
Mauritania.  That is how bad he wants to leave this country. 
When they retired, I was the only one of the squad left there at the
university. I took on helping others on my own. Sometimes I ask
“Benz” and “Khalil” for their help, but they just say that they are done
with that.  And trust me it was not easy to help four classes at the
same time, it is just not that simple. Sometimes I have to wake up at
8am and keep sending answers for the tests and the exams until 6 pm.
literally speaking.  I even bought two phones so I can do two
classes at the same time.  And what was annoying was that I send
someone something and they ask me:

“Did you send this to someone else or just to me?”

I don’t reply that question, I just enjoy watching that person to see
what their reaction is going to be like. I mean, they were not going to
write anything at all, and that is why they wanted me to send them
something to write in the first place, right?  There are some

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teachers who do not care about reading the same thing countless
times. And there are some teachers who do not bother themselves
reading students papers at all. I know the ones that do care, and I
know how to deal with them.  At the end of the day, when I don’t
reply them, they end up writing what I sent them.  I mean, I didn’t
wake up when I was supposed to be sleeping and dreaming of eating a
sandwich and drinking Danone so you ask me such silly question. 
Another challenging thing I had to face in this cheating type of a thing
was the fact that I had some cheaters who wanted to cheat but they
didn’t know how.  And even if they managed to pull out their
phones, they wouldn’t know how to deal with the things they received.
They were bad cheaters to put it simply. For instance, there was that
girl who was new to the whole English thing. Her name was “Khatou”,
and my friends “Dahan” and “Pélé” brought her to me so I can teach
her some English. But I told her that that would not happen.  I tried
to teach her a lit bit at home though, and she learnt a little bit but not
enough to make it through university on her own. So, I entered with
her in some of her tests and did her papers for her, and I wrote her
name for her too.  Yup! She was that bad.  She also used to call
me during the exam, for that I can dictate the answers on her. 
Every time I tell her a word she says: “Spell it for me” and I do spell it
for her. I tell her the whole thing word by word with spelling each and
every word apart.  She is definitely not one of my favorite
cheaters, for she was a bad one. That if not the worst. 

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Another bad cheater on my list is “Belghiss”. She doesn’t know how to

cheat, and she doesn’t revise either. Therefore she fails in most
subjects.  Despite the fact that she is a bad cheater, there was that
one time when she womaned up and decided to try cheating using her
phone for once in her life.  I sent her the whole thing and she
wrote it all and got good grades that she usually sees in her wildest
dreams only. 

One worse cheater on my list is definitely my friend “Brems”, he just

can’t cheat.  He’s not a bad student though, but he’s the laziest. 
And so is my cousin “Vadala”, I’m not sure if we are relatives or not,
but she claims that we are.  Well, she can’t take out her phone during
a test or an exam, and that is why she fails in many subjects.  She is
usually helped by “Chocola” or me myself. I have even done a test on
behalf of her once; I had to write a guy’s name “Vadal”  So close to
her name. I had 99.99% that the teacher would not notice it though. 
“Babbe”.  She is a failure when it comes to cheating, she always asks
me to send her the answers, and I do but she comes out and says:

“I couldn’t take out my phone.” 

And that expression is hated by “Grampa”. Whenever I send someone

the answers and they come out of a test or an exam saying that,
“Grampa” tells them:

“If you don’t study or revise, and you don’t cheat, how do you expect to
succeed?” 

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“Mariem Elban” who is also a highly trained cheater and she is

probably the best cheater I’ve ever worked with.  She sends
everything clearly, and she writes what she receives without any
complaining. 

“Mina” as well is a highly trained cheater, and a nice person. She

always tries to do her best, yet her best is not always the best. 

“Ahmed” is also a highly trained cheater and one of my favorites as

well. He always does tests and exams on behalf of others.  He always
writes all what he receives, which helped him validating all of his
subjects. 

“Valla” is definitely a highly trained cheater that managed to validate

all her subjects as well. And she always writes what she receives
despite the intensive security. If she is going to cheat -and she is
always going to cheat- she will cheat. 

“Hassen” and “Moktar” are also highly trained cheaters. They are not
bad students, and they are not bad at English. But, they always go for
cheating. 

“Ezza”, “Mariem Alhassan” and “Ahlam” or “Dreams” as I like to call

her are medium trained cheaters.  They sucked at English, and
they found out that many people were receiving packages from me so
they were added to my “Sending” list. 

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“Aghlana” and “Neyta” were also highly trained cheaters. Even if it was
something they know, they would cheat it any way. 

“Mayoz”, “Meyma”, “Mariem Europe”, “Emane” and “Tehany” are highly

trained cheaters.  I think that’s enough about them.  It’s been
an honor dealing with them. 

“Hendou” is just fine. She is a very good student, and she used to get
high grades. However, she couldn’t just sit back and watches everyone
passes her.  She became lazy and careless, so she got into the game.
I guess that’s also enough about her. 

Those in addition to many others I don’t know their names, just their
faces.  As well as, many others too that I don’t even know, they just
send me their tests and exams and I do them for them. Then they go
like, “Thanks” and I go like, “You’re welcome”. 

In a nutshell, helping others to cheat to pass was something I did

almost my whole life, and it has a negative and a positive outcome
though. For instance, the positive about it is that I have helped so
many students pass their tests, exams, and even graduate. And the
negative about it is also that I have helped students pass their tests,
exams, and even graduate, except for the fact that they don’t even
know or speak the language. 

Ps: My lovely cheaters please find someone else to help you

with your “Cheating” next year. I’ve resigned.  I’m serious.

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CHAPTER SIX

“EBC & THE HUB”

“EBC”

I’ve always loved English. I’ve always wanted to learn it and

speak it as well. I’ve learnt so much of it from watching movies, and
sometimes from reading Eminem’s lyrics.  However, by almost
finishing university I was still sucking at it.  I couldn’t speak it, but
not entirely because I didn’t learn it. I learnt a lot, but I was not even
speaking the normal speaking itself.  I’m a very silent guy, I like to
not say anything because everything I say must be a joke and someone
might be offended by it and that was not something I wanted. 

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I saw how my friends “JB” and “Pato” have improved their skills in
English by studying at EBC. Therefore they recommended it for me, so
I went there for a while. I actually needed to practice my English, and
EBC provided me with that environment. I really needed to be a social
creature. That is all it is. 

I met so many great students there, and I met many great

teachers as well. I was taught by “Yenje” who is an English student just
like me except for the fact that he is better.  I learnt a lot from him.
The way he teaches is very clear and effective. You will not even need
to ask him any question because you will understand the lesson very
easily and very well. He is a creative guy, and he is my idol person here
in Mauritania.  I like how he is creative and talented, and he brings
that in his teaching methods, which I found very helpful and useful in
teaching the language. There was that one time when he gave us acting
tasks. He chose some of us, and gave each one a clip or a scene from a
movie or a series. And we had to imitate and perform those scenes in
front of the whole class.  I remember I was sitting at the back, when
he asked who would go first. No one raised their hands, so I did. 
I was the first one to go. I got to do a scene for my favorite actor from
my favorite movie.  Yeah! How amazing that is.  It was the “Joker”
from the “Dark knight”.  I was so busy with the university at that
time, so I didn’t prepare well. However, I managed to memorize my
lines the very afternoon before our class, which was at 8 pm.  I was
the first one, and I performed but not very well, I could feel it.  

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Then my classmates followed me one by one until the last one, and
they performed amazingly.  He made us vote for the best act, and
somehow I won.  The top three acts were given the opportunity to
re-act their scenes. I came for another time, and then I tried my best. It
turned out to be better than the first time, I could feel it.  The fact
that he is an actor, movie-maker, creative, talented, and a teacher is
definitely what makes him my favorite person.  I’ve always wanted
to do so many different things, I don’t like being average, I like being
different in different ways, if that makes sense. 

Another great teacher I was taught by was “Mohsin”. He is my

second favorite teacher over there. I like his methods in teaching,
especially when it comes to forcing us to speak.  For me, the only way
to overcome something is by facing it. He involves students in his class,
and pushes them to speak English. The first time I came to his class, I
was so super silent. I couldn’t speak a word, though I could write
novels.  Speaking English was always my biggest dilemma. With
him and teacher “Yussef” I could make some progress. I was able to
generate some words and sentences and speak them out.  He was
a big help to me and so was “Yussef” too. Therefore I thank them both,
and they have my sincere appreciation and gratitude. 

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Another wonderful teacher I was taught by was teacher

“Saeed” (Happy man).  He has great and effective strategies when it
comes to teaching. He keeps you busy doing activities, which did help
us a lot to improve our levels in speaking English. He always gives you
something to do, whether it is a report to present, a play to perform, a
story to tell, or a debate to make… He has always been a great help for
us, and we do appreciate his effort and patience when it happened that
he had to deal with a bunch of airheads such as us. 

A great teacher was “Aziz” as well. He taught me “Grammar”,

but not all, only the “Noun phrase” part. He is a very funny and
energetic old man. He knows how to simplify and facilitate what is
hard and complex. And the benefits that one would get from his class
are not only grammatical, but historical and scientific benefits as well.
He inserts scientific and historical topics into his lectures, and I knew
so much information and stuff about the world that I didn’t know
before. In a nutshell, he is definitely one of the best teachers there,
plus he is a native speaker. 

Moreover, there are many other great teachers some of them

taught me and some did not. But it was an honor for me to meet and
know them.

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The director “Demba” for instance, he taught me for a little time once.
And he is a nice, kind, and friendly guy. I don’t know a lot about him,
but he got my respect and appreciation.

“Memme” is another teacher of mine. He taught me in L4, and he is a

nice guy. He taught me “Speaking” classes along with “Med Mahmoud”
who is also another teacher over there, and he is a very good speaker
and a good student. I’ve always looked up to him. 

“Wel Bulla”, “Teyib”, “Hamada”, and “Adnan” are great teachers for
sure. I knew them before at university, and they were good students.
They didn’t teach me unfortunately, but that is their loss. 

“Bah” is a graduate student from EBC and he took on the job of the
administration. He is the office man.  He always nags on me to pay
him; little did he know was that I was poor. I’m still poor in fact. 

“Mr. Vall” is also a teacher there. He taught me once for a little time as
well. I don’t know a lot about him, but he is a nice guy. And he has a car
too. 

“Khalil”, “Ali” and “Med Kweiry” are also teachers over there. They
have never taught me before. Their loss though. 

“Koutob Hamdinou” is also another (ebc) graduate, and he was

teaching over there for some time, then he left to Algeria to pursue his
study. He is also a great rapper and very good at English. I’ve always
wanted him to sing with me. 

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“Saleck”, “Pato”, and “JB” are teachers as well. This trio was studying
with me at university, and now they are teaching others what they
were taught. What a nice and noble thing to do. 

Besides such great teachers, I met some great students as

well. Most of students who studied with me sucked at English, which
was why they were there.  We learnt a lot together, and we did
many activities together. Our classes were not boring, and those were
the classes I could learn some from. I can’t learn in a bleak classroom.
 There was that one time, when our teacher “Aziz” was explaining
something in grammar, and there was that guy who was one of our
classmates, his name was “Emin”, and you must be familiar with the
excessive use of this sentence for fresh English learners: “Can I say….”

“Can I say ………” he said, and he said a sentence in a wrong order. 

“Yes you can, but it is wrong.” I told him.  And we laughed a lot
that day. It was hilarious. 

I remember when our teacher “Saeed” used to ask us about our

levels in English, and every time he asks “El Haj Yemani” I say “He has
zero level in English”.  The best thing about him is that he speaks
the language fluently but wrongly.  He breaks down the normal
English structure all the time. He uses pronouns interchangeably. He
uses “He” instead of “She” and “They” instead of “We”. You will never
know who he really means, you, her, him, us, them, or someone else.


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Another student there is “Yahya”. He speaks a bit and says a lot

but not a lot.  I bet you have noticed that that sentence doesn’t make
sense, and so is he.  He comes to class and leaves without learning
anything. I actually think that he comes to class only to show off with
his brand new clothes, new day new clothes.  And there was that
time when I was chilling at home and minding my own business, when
he sent me a message. A message he always sends me. “I miss you”, and
I sent him the reply I always send him “Whatever”.  Then he sent
me a picture of his exam. 

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

“I need your help, I have an exam right now and I need you to do this
for me” He replied.

“Ok, but I have others at university after few munities, they also need
me for their exams” I said. 

“Ok! Just do what you can” He said.

“Alright then, catch.” I said. 

In fact, his exam was very simple and easy, it was very ordinary
grammar lessons we studied at ebc. 

“Go back to the administration and tell them to give you your money
back, for you didn’t benefit anything they taught you.” I told him. 

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He was a nice guy though, as “Kemach” was too.  “Kemach” studied

with me in the same class, and he was a good student in terms of being
a good student.  He tries his best to learn English, yet when he
speaks it and doesn’t find a word quickly he says it in French.  I used
to do that too, but vice versa.  There was that one time when he
made me laugh so hard.  He came up with a theory -when we were
going to the prayer- that the teachers always group us in the same
groups every time. 

“So, what? Maybe it is just a coincidence.” I said

“No, No, it is intended.” He said

“You see, they put all the good students together, and all weak
students with you and ‘Kebir’.” He added.

“And why is that exactly?” I asked, with a smile on my face. 

“They want to balance the groups.” He said, with a smile on his face. 

“You see, those good students are good but just to the extent that they
can lift themselves up, only themselves, while you and ‘Kebir’ can lift
us up with you.” He added. 

I laughed a lot that day. He was a funny guy with glasses. 

One of the best students there, is definitely “Kebir”. He studies

at higher institution of something I don’t remember.  We call it
“The white house” though. As well as “Aicha” who is probably the only

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student in the classroom who has our lessons. She doesn’t write them
though; she only takes pictures of them instead.  She is nice and
funny, but she always tries to have a beef with me and I don’t know
why.  And there is “Haje” also. She actually has the best accent in
the class, plus she watches a lot of movies because she always brings
up lines from them in her speech.  And she hates me because I’m
better than her at English.  I didn’t say that though, she did. 
And about “Fatma”, or better known as “The girl who owes me a
freaking sandwich”.  She tried to be nice with us, so one time
after the class she took us to a restaurant wannabe place.  She
bought us Sandwiches, but I didn’t like what they served at that place.
I believe it was called something like “Tangana”.  Like I said, I
didn’t like their service, so I told her to buy me my sandwich from the
cafeteria at the university, and she said yes.  However, the university
closed and I haven’t eaten my sandwich she owes me.  And to
make things worse, she disappeared.  She doesn’t come to class
anymore, and I don’t have her phone number. I can get it though, but I
don’t want to.  But, I’m telling her like what “Liam Neeson” says in
his movie “Taken”:

“If you give me my sandwich right now, that will be the end of it. I will
not look for you, and I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look
for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”

Except that I won’t kill her actually.  I need her alive, so I can get
my sandwich once and for good. 

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Both “Mrs. Hope” and “Mrs. Document” are peaceful people, they just
come there, attend the class, and leave.  Unlike “Ahmed Vall” who
is very noisy, like, the guy is a time bomb. He is a nice, normal, and
silent guy, until the teacher brings up a topic about the two genders.
He snaps! Then he starts shouting, yelling, screaming and all their
synonyms.  He is always against women, and I really want to
know what they did to him so he became that way.  Moreover,
there are other students I was happy to know, such as “Souvi”, “Idris”
“Hassen” “Moctar”, “Maham”, “El Wely”, “Bastami”, “Pro”, “Robot”,
“Ahmed” who looks like if he is rapping like “Jay Z” whenever he
speaks, “Bouha” and his brother with glasses, along with “SD” who is
from my hometown, and somehow he has a beautiful hair, “Oumou”
who has a car, Oumoulkhairat” who usually sits in the front seat, and
“Tislim” whom I’m definitely sure that I misspelled her name, “Bettah”,
“Feyti”, “Baba Hamadi”, “Sidi M’sabou3”, Fatis”, Chiva”, “Dewle”, “Sidi
Angel”, “Ahmedou Achour”, “Mamty”, “Zouzou”, and all the rest, girls
and guys with us in the classroom whom I don’t know their names. 

One that stood out, and actually reminded me of my Friend

“M’hamed” -and his look and general view about life- was “Mido”. The
first time we met was at “Grammar challenge” event, at (ebc). We won
that challenge by the way.  After that we got along very easily and
very quickly. We had the same nonsensical view about most things. As
well as, the same ambitions and desire to stand out and be different.
 He is a nice dude, with a vivid attitude, and an unstable mood. 

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He is creative and talented. He is a YouTuber, writer, actor, singer,

video editor and more.  He’s always complaining about being poor,
and he always plans to change that miserable reality of his. Add to him
another poor creature like me.  We are always thinking about
making money out of stuff like, songs, short movies, and mostly
everything we can think of.  We had the ideas, but we couldn’t
portray them in reality. The only setback we suffered from the most
was being poor and not being able to buy equipments such as
Cameras, audio recording toolkits, laptops, and cinematic stuff
whatsoever.  We even thought of making a video and send it to
“Bill Gate” asking him for few bucks.  I mean, he wouldn’t even notice
that he had given us those few bucks, for the gigantic load of money he
owns.  Basically, we just wanted to be different, think different,
and do different things.  We even had this song to sing: 

 CHORUS/HOOK 
Yo! My name is Ben, and this is my Amigo Mido

We ain’t usually slow

But we’re gonna talk despacito

Before we go

And before we’re ido

We’re setting this place on fuego

Just so that you know

We’re not playing around contigo

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Verse 1
Yo! Mr. President, Don’t you dare asking me

What the HELL is bothering me

You know we’re poor, you know we’re broke

Don’t act like you didn’t hear what I spoke

There’s no fire if there’s no smoke

A man can’t get a drink or a meal

And that’s really sad, but it’s really real

And I don’t think you feel what I feel

You’ve never had to deal with the deals I deal with, cuz your life is ideal

You never had to pay a bill, or to beg for a meal

You lack the skill, cuz you never had to kill yourself to climb a hill

Instead, you sit behind the wheel, and feel, your V8’s leathered steering-wheel,
and chill while you’re sitting still, but afraid to spill, some coffee in your dear
vehicle

I’mma make myself clear

Cuz I no longer fear to feel, or feel the fear

I’m not gonna whisper in your ear, so you can hear, what’s going on here.

And I’m not gonna quote Einstein or Sapire, or even the late Shakespeare to
explain to you how the atmosphere, got foggy here, it’s so clear that it’s so unclear,
and it’s not gonna disappear while you and your clumsy peers just sitting here,
drinking ice cold beer.

I hope I made myself clear.

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Verse 2
You ruled us for a whole decade

For 10 years we’ve been in the dark shade

For 10 years we’ve seen how corruption’s made

10 years of doing the opposite of what you’ve said

No hospitals, No schools. No law and order, no rules

No parks, no roads. One airport, one plane

Active youth, but brain-drain. Zero progress, and it’s insane

That we’re only number one in (the longest train) 

Massive population, with massive claims

Massive industry, with no aims

Skyrocketing in prices, causing catastrophic crisis

It’s like rolling dices, 50/50 chances

You’re gambling with our lives. You’re even worse than ISIS

When you go out in the streets, your heart picks up the pace of beats

kids, playing with plastic wheels, trying to smile despite how it really feels.

While you’re on a night out with your wife

A 14 years old is carrying a knife

He’s ready to stab, to kill to save his life

He’s no criminal, but he gotta strive to stay alive in this wildlife where you connive
to deprive to thrive.

He’s just a boy, a boy who’s never enjoyed a toy

He’s mad, he’s desperate, he’s sad, and he feels bad

cuz he knows there’s no mom and dad.

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Verse 3
I did no wrong to you, except that I voted for you

See, Back then I wasn’t wise

I believed all your beautiful lies

I believed all your HOWs and WHYs

But now, I know where the mistake lies

I see it clearly in your eyes

As I see the goodbyes rise, and the disguise flies

All I’m saying is that you are fools. Just violating laws and rules

And my girl keeps nagging on me the whole time

Oh! Wait. I don’t have a girl, cuz I don’t have a job

cuz the job brings the girl, and the girl comes with the job

even SpongeBob got a job, while I barely can afford a cab

But here’s the thing, look!. I wanna hook you with this hook

“You didn’t help and we can’t count how much you took

So much you took, that we can’t find something to cook”

We’re running out of time, the clock, tik-tok, tik-tok

And with this unlucky luck, we’re not moving forward, we’re stuck

Sadness everywhere and nowhere is the funk

Kids, lookin’ for the fun, but the fun has gone, with the wind, it’s run

There’s no more fun in the air, only bleakness and despair

Happiness has NO essence. NO sense, NO reference

It doesn’t even exist, NO existence.

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Verse 4
I’m just a mad dude, with a bad attitude

Some losers told me not to let this rap out

But screw them, I have no doubt, I’m letting it all out

But I guess I forgot

That you don’t care whether I post this online or not

But guess whaaat? me too, I don’t care whether you care or not

Cuz I got more important things to care about 

I didn’t do anything wrong except voting for you

And that’s not OK with me, but it’s OK with you

You said we hate each other, no we don’t, but we do hate you

You promised to lead the country to its prime

I guess that wasn’t your one and only lie or crime

Well, that was a time, and this is a time

The time for quitting thinking of running for the third time

Cuz, this country needs a new son, new sun

So, get ready – set – go – no, run! Run!

This is a fight you’ll lose. So think twice before you choose

Or you might have your teeth broken by a dude’s shoes 

While you’re drinking ice cold booze

We’ve had enough of being patient, while dying of dehydration

And in your head, a global annihilation, for the whole nation, and what a situation!

Well, that’s a dead-end destination

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OUTRO

Yo! My name is Ben

On a scale of one to ten

I give you minus eleven

I guess you lost people’s trust

Now, overthrowing you is a must

You turned our dreams to ashes and dust

But no more spells to cast

You’re going down fast

You trapped us in the past

But the past will pass fast

And the present will come but it won’t last

But we’ll make it vast

So the future can come at last and last

In a nutshell, (ebc) is definitely a place where I had fun and learnt

a lot. Also, it’s where I made many friends, and met many great and
wonderful teachers. 

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“THE HUB”

The hub is also another place where I learnt so much English

and met many people. It is a center that builds a safe community to
practice English among native speakers by improving one’s level
through fun and creative classes.  And that is definitely an effective
way to help someone learn something.  Because I had classes at
university, I couldn’t attend their classes regularly for they were at the
same time. However, I could attend most of the classes they made at
university. They helped the English department students a lot, and
they helped me a lot in particular. I managed to attend few events and
classes at the hub center, and one was an art event. They have a
special event every Thursday. I came there along with many other
students, we found everything prepared ahead. That day, teachers
“Christy” and “Didi” helped us a lot. We drew, and we had fun doing
that. Among the classes I attended was “Critical thinking” with teacher
“Dayton”; he is a nice and funny guy. He also taught us another class
“Comedy in English”, and it was hilarious. Once, we got the chance to
act in a play of our own making.  Another time we watched funny and
comedic videos, and he was explaining everything for us in a very
funny way. To put it simply, his classes were ones to enjoy.  “Didi”

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also taught us “Leadership” classes, and she was very helpful, and we
learned a lot from her.  The best thing about the hub center is that it
contains a library with many books from which you can enjoy reading
while you’re there, and you can even take a book home with you, read
it, and then bring it back.  Also, there is a room for conversations,
games, events, and more.  It is actually a perfect place to learn
English in a proper learning environment.  There are other teachers
as well, like “Andrew” who is a wonderful teacher, and he’s always
there for us. “Lacy” is also a teacher there, and she’s actually my
favorite teacher there. I used to show her some of my writings to give
me some feedbacks.  “Lauren” actually taught me at university, and
she is a great teacher. She also teaches at the hub. “Mitch” is another
teacher there, he is a nice guy. “Mark” is a teacher there as well, and he
used to come to our university along with the rest hub staff and teach
us in the “American corner”.  “Casey”, “Tiffany”, and “Alicia” are also
great teachers, and they used to teach us at university in the
“American corner” as well.

In a nutshell, the hub is a place where I had fun and learned a lot.
So, thank you all teachers for your help and patience because we are
not an easy people to teach. 

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CHAPTER SEVEN

“FACEBK”

Unlike most people, I was using “Facebook” to get in contact

with English speakers and learners because I actually wanted to learn
the language so bad. And to be honest, I wanted to learn it so I could
watch movies without subtitles and without having to wait for “MBC 2”
to air them after four or five years from their actual releasing date. 
I also wanted to learn it so I can be a rapper one day. 

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I probably spent more than a year with only three friends on my

facebook page.  Yeah! I used to turn down all the friendship
requests I receive as long as they are Mauritanians in general, and non
English speakers in particular.   I remember my friends used to ask
me to add them on facebook, and I say:

“I meet you every day, so there’s no need for us to be friends on

facebook as well.”

I actually didn’t want any non-English news feed to show up on my

facebook page. I wanted English only.  I had three American friends,
and they are still my friends as well. They are “Seth Merritt”, “Heather
Apostolopoulos”, and “Brit Wilson”.  I learned a lot of English from
“Seth”, as well as from “Heather” and “Brit”. However, I kind of felt pity
towards my fellow Mauritanians, so I started accepting their
friendship requests.  But I made sure that I only had the ones I
knew in person, and the ones who spoke or were learning English like
me.  That was then; I actually have everybody on my facebook
nowadays.  And it turned out to be not as bad as I thought it
would be.  I met many awesome, funny, nice, and talented people on
facebook. Some of them I got the chance to meet in person, and some I
still hope to meet one day. 

One thing most people agree on is that most facebook friendships

are better as long as they are on facebook.  But that is not always.

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For instance, one of my favorite facebook friends is “Chou Ahmed”.

She’s nice and humble. She is a good drawer, and a good English
speaker.  She’s also a graduate from ebc, and she has a guitar. She
says she doesn’t know how to play on it, but she does, I’ve heard her
playing on it before.  When I met her for the first time in person
she knew me, while I didn’t know her. I’ve never seen her face before
after all.  and I don’t know how people from facebook recognize
me from my pictures that I post on facebook, I mean, I look nothing
like my pictures.  Those pictures go through many editing, filtering,
brightening, and enhancing processes before making it to my facebook
page. 

Back to “Chou”, when I met her, she was just like her that I met on
facebook, humble, nice, beautiful (Figured that out later ), and very
good at English.  I’ve always wanted her to sing with me some of
the songs I wrote, but she refused claiming that she can’t sing or that
her voice is not that good, which is not the case by the way.  She is
definitely one of my favorite friends. 

Another favorite facebook friend of mine is “Selma Adem”. We spoke

for almost a year or so, on facebook, and she was a student at the
(ISPLTI) institution.  She’s good at English as well, and she is very
lovely, humble, kind, funny, and pretty (figured that out later too ).
The first time I met her was at the door of her institution, and to be

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clear, she was the one who insisted to see me.  I didn’t recognize
her however, for I’d never seen her face before.  And somehow she
recognized me, and we met few times after that.  I visited her at
home to work with her on her project, and she visited me at the
university to work with me on her project too.  Yeah! I don’t do
projects, they were all hers.  She is definitely one that I’m glad to
know and meet in person.  Oh! And she is a writer as well. She has a
great story that I’m definitely sure she will publish one day. 

“Mahita” is also one of the highly wanted facebook friends on my list

that I want to meet in person.  She is from my hometown “Zouerate”.
We studied at the same high school there, but I’ve never seen her face
before.  She claims that we have met before, but I don’t remember
her.  She also said that she was always with “Mentou” when we met.
It’s weird that we have met many times, and I still don’t remember her
face.  Because “I don’t forget pretty faces” said some guy in some
movie. 

Another facebook friend that I met in person is “Muhammad Nebil”. 

He is a funny guy. I passed by him once, and he looked whiter than his
pictures on facebook, so I was going to say hi! But then I wasn’t sure of
him being him.  I texted him that night and it turned out it was
actually him.  However, I met him another time on another day,

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and that time we shacked hands and I went like “Is this really you?”.
And he went like “Yeah”. It seemed like he recognized me before I
recognize him.  He is also a big fan of “GOT”, Game of thrones. 
And he always posts memes of it on his facebook page. 

And speaking of which, “Mamme” and “Mint Emir” are also huge fans
of “Game of thrones”.   They have even created a group on
whatsapp along with “Muhammad Nebil” just for the bloody fantasy. 
That group was full of “GOT” fans, and they used to meet together and
rent a restaurant or an area in there and watch “GOT” together. 
I was in that group too, but I wasn’t participating as they were.  Many
“GOT” fans were there along with “Muhammad Nebil”, “Mamme”, and
“Mint Emir”, and all of them were aware of everything about the
series, while I had no idea about it.  I was just there to watch and
learn.  Plus, I was 90% there to hear “Mint Emir” speaks, she has
the cutest voice in the whole universe.  You’d do anything to hear her
trying to say “Mederdra”.  Moving forward, those two are definitely
virtual friends that I like to meet in person one day. 

“Abdallahi Ben Asim” is also a friend of mine that I had the chance to
meet in person. We basically met, so I send him some movies.  And
once, he paid me a visit at campus to send him some movies, and then
the buses left and we were there alone.  Actually, “Khalil” was
there with us, “Meii” was too, and “Tekber” as well. I don’t remember

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how we made it home on that day anymore.  It was a crazy day
after all. 

“Momo Ki” is also one of my favorite friends, and she is a friend of

“Selma” and they have studied together at the (ISPLTI) institution. 
I was lucky to meet her once at campus when she was visiting her
friend over there.  I met her on facebook first, and OMG! She is
definitely the one I was looking for to sing with me my songs. 
She sent me a demo of her singing “Chandelier” by “Sia” and she was
amazing, and her voice was incredible as well. And she can spit some
rhymes too, yeah, she’s a rapper.  She is also a good drawer, she
draws very well. 

“Radia Cherif” and “Adja Aya” are also wonderful, and I like to meet
them one day. Both of them claim that they are taller than me, but
little did they know is that I’m the tallest short person,  and the
shortest tall person.  Another thing about them is that they are so
into K-pop, K-drama, and K-everything in fact.  “Adja” is always
sharing memes on her facebook page, while “Radia” is a highly trained
introvert.  Yeah! She’s allergic to people.  And what I like
about her the most is that she’s an author. She wrote a book about
something she refuses to spit out, but she’s about to publish her book

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anyway.  Those two are definitely among the highly wanted people
I like to meet in person. 

“Emira Elbah” is also one of the many I like to meet in person. I believe
she’s a future doctor. I don’t wish to meet her as a patient though. 

“Mohamed NDB” is a friend that I met in person as well. I met him at an

event at ebc.  The first time we met on facebook was when he saw a
post I posted about me being a rapper.  He said he was interested,
and that he wanted to sing with me.  He is definitely a friend I’m
glad to meet in person.

“Hayati Babah” is one I’m glad to meet in person, though it was a funny
incident.  The first time we met in person was at the university
when we both got out of the bus:

“Are you Ben GX from facebook?” she asked me

“Oh! Sorry no I’m not.” I said

You should have seen the look on her face, I mean she was so sure of
me, yet she had a second thought.  She left me alone,  and after
some steps we took toward the campus gate I told her:

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“Actually yes, I’m Ben”. 

“I knew it” she said

And we both laughed at that.  She is definitely a friend I’m happy
to know and meet in person.  And she has a beautiful smile too. 

Other people I met in person as well are “Selma’s” friends

“Slemhoum”, who is wise, smart, sage, and crazily amazing (I don’t
know if those two can go together, but that’s the first impression I got
about her).  “Khadouj” that I know nothing about; but we shared a
taxi cab once.  And “Lally”, who is a good drawer as well. I had met
her at “the hub” few times before she knew me. 

“Sidi Naji” is also a friend of mine that I like to meet in person one day.
He is awesome, funny, optimistic, and always comments on my posts.

“Soufi Mhadi” who’s always posting stuff about football. 

“Mohamed Ene” who’s always feeling negative and down about almost
everything in life. 

“Moctar YH” who’s always minding his own business. 

And “Mohamed Ahmedo Sidi” who’s always getting under my skin with
his Bollywood nonsensical nonsense. 

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“Tfeile Kheiry” was actually the only one who seemed happy to meet
me in person.  I’m usually the one who wants to meet others, but the
case was vice versa with her. The first time we met was at her faculty,
(FST). I was there with my friends waiting for “Pélé” to finish his exam,
when she ran across me: 

“You’re Ben GX, cool, I finally saw you and on the last day of school”
She said, with beautiful enthusiasm. 

We exchanged few words, and that was it. 

Moreover, I have many other friends on facebook that I hope to

meet in person one day, among those: “Sunny Ahmed”, “Arya Johnson”,
“Ment Rgueybat”, “Potata”, “Isaac Muhamed”, “Adil Khan”, “Wava”,
“Brahim Doua”, “Dje Bedi”, “Mariem Ebi”, “Mariem Sid’Mhamed” who’s
a great and talented painter, “Vethi Vh Ely”, “Zo Hra”, “Khady Ebou”
who has beautiful eyes,  “Humanity Kalla” who’s so super careless
about everyone and everything,  “Wel Haibelty” who’s a funny guy, 
“Nejat Cheikh El Wely”, “Iman Faith”, and “Hanan Dedi” who studies at
the “White house” even though we have actually seen each other for a
split of a second once. Those in addition to many others I would
definitely be glad to meet in person one day.   

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In a nutshell, facebook is definitely a place where I met

some wonderful, nice, humble, and talented people virtually and
realistically.  However, I still don’t know how people recognize
me from my pictures they see on facebook.  I mean, I might look like
“Chris Hemsworth” on Facebook , while I actually look like “Shrek”
in reality, except that I’m not green, I’m red. 

Moreover, there are some people I wished we were closer than we

are. And they are many, but the major one is “Houda” or “Taylor Swift”.
I have always wanted to know her more, but never got the chance to. 
However, she owes me a duet.   Yeah! It is what you heard. Or what
you read, more logically.   She promised to sing with me one of the
songs I wrote. My voice is a catastrophic disaster, and I need someone
like her to sing with me so she draws people’s attention away from my
awful voice. Plus, she is funny, smart, pretty, and I love her
enthusiasm. 



These are some of my and your memories, but not all of them though.
And I hope it made you smile, reading and recalling them again. 

“Thank you” 

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 GLOSSARY:

 Bac: Baccalaureate
 Brevet: a diploma for finishing middle school.
 Danone: My favorite drink.  Strawberry’s Yogurt. 
 Frenglish: A mixture of French and English 
 FST: faculty of science and technology.
 ISPLTI: an institution for teaching translation and languages
or something like it. 
 Mauritel cards: balance cards for telephones and calls.
 MBC 2: an Arabic channel for foreign movies, actually only for
Hollywood movies.
 MBC 3: An Arabic channel for cartoons
 Mederdra: A Mauritanian city. 
 NKTT: Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania
 Resto: shortcut for Restaurant
 Resit: a second chance to repeat the exam. 
 S3/S4/S6: Semesters at university
 Sensei: Japanese word, it means “Master”
 Spacetoon: a channel for children and anime in Arabic. 
 Tangana: a local fast-food cafeteria.
 Um: Mauritanian currency 
 White house: An institution painted in white. 
 Yugioh cards: Google it…
 “SCHOOL IS THE WELL OF MEMORIES”

 THIS BOOK IS NOT BASED ON A TRUE STORY, IT IS A TRUE STORY. 

 ALL EVENTS, PLACES, AND CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK ARE REALLY

REAL. 

 THIS BOOK IS ALL ABOUT UPS & DOWNS, SMILES & FROWNS, AND
TRAVELING BETWEEN TOWNS. 

 THIS BOOK IS ABOUT LIFE AT SCHOOL IN GENERAL. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

PSEUDONYM / PEN-NAME: BEN-GX

AN AUTHOR, A GHOST-WRITER,  A RAPPER, A PAINTER, AND A STUDENT. 

NO PREVIOUS WRITTEN WORK, THIS IS THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO WRITE

ANYTHING BESIDES FEW SONGS.