Walaloo Mana Barumsaa Koo -

I froze. The other kids giggled. But Barsiisaa Girma nodded gently. “Continue,” he whispered.

We cried. Even Barsiisaa Girma wiped his glasses. Today, I am a teacher in a city school — clean windows, projectors, a library full of books. But sometimes, in the middle of a lesson, I close my eyes and I’m back there: the smell of rain on hot cement, the scratch of chalk, the laughter under the odaa tree. walaloo mana barumsaa koo

“ Mana barumsaa koo, Ati qabda ija koo fi abjuu koo. Yeroo addunyaan natti dadhabde, Ati natti jette: ‘Bareeduma.’ ” (My school, You hold my eye and my dream. When the world tired of me, You said: ‘You are beautiful.’) I froze

Years passed. I grew taller, the benches grew shorter. Barsiisaa Girma retired. The odaa tree lost a branch in a storm. But the school remained — stubborn, poor, but alive . “Continue,” he whispered

But on the wall of my old classroom, someone had scribbled new words in Oromo:

I remember the morning I first walked through its creaking iron gate. I was seven, clutching my mother’s hand, my qalbi (heart) thumping like a nagara drum. The smell of old chalk, rain-soaked earth, and the faint sweetness of buna from the teachers’ lounge filled the air. Above the door, faded letters spelled: