A, B, C... The First Letters

 

A, B, C... THE FIRST LETTERS

One summer day in 1967, my father pointed to a wooden desk we had at home and said to me: “Sit down, it’s your turn.”

A few weeks earlier, I had turned six years old, and at the end of that summer, I would begin primary school at School No. 3151. It was better known as “Mr. González’s little school” and was located on the fourteenth block of Aviation Avenue in the San Isidro Barrio of Chimbote, Peru.

In those days, children learned to read and write in Transición (First Grade), but one of my father’s rules was to teach his children how to read and write before sending them there. In due time, my four older siblings—Roger, Nelly, María, and Fernando—had already sat at that same wooden desk.

And the summer of 1967 was my turn to learn.

On the day of the first lesson, I found the Cartilla (the alphabet primer), the Phonetic Syllabary, and the Coquito book on the desk. My father was my first teacher. The most brilliant of them all. He spoke with clarity, taught with practical examples, and knew exactly what his goal was. That summer, he was 43 years old... eight years younger than I am now as I write these lines.

The classes began with the Cartilla: A for avión (airplane), B for buque (ship), C for casa (house)…

We quickly moved on to the Phonetic Syllabary, a small illustrated book with one page for each letter. I owe my nickname, “Chato,” to this syllabary. It happened like this: the page for the old Spanish letter “CH” featured a drawing of a boy with a flat nose and the word “Chato” next to the illustration. One of those days, while I was spelling out that page, my mother walked by, looked at the drawing, and said: “Look, he’s just like you, my little Chatito!” From then on, everyone in the Barrio knew me as “Chato.”

After the Syllabary came the Coquito book, and alongside it, I practiced my penmanship in Palmer Method notebooks. I enjoyed the learning process, but I missed watching the soccer matches played daily on my street (Union Street). While I was sounding out syllables and tracing new words, outside the ball would crash against the adobe wall of my house. Every now and then, I’d hear the shout of “GOAL!”, and I was dying to know who was winning.

After two intense weeks, the last day of lessons arrived. I remember it clearly. It was a Sunday. My father was scratching his head because he couldn't believe I had learned to read and write in just fourteen days. He insisted on a final review, while I was desperate to get outside.

It’s impossible to forget that day. Like many other Sundays, a “local classic” was being played on my street between the “cholos” from my Barrio (San Isidro) and the “pitucos” from the 21 de Abril "A" housing development—a group from blocks 16 and 17 who met on the corner. On the “cholos” side, players included Vicente “La Burra” Vergaray, the brothers “Chana” and “Chiqui” Castillo, and Leonel Pinedo. Among the “pitucos,” the names that come to mind are the brothers Víctor and Carlitos Pisfil, Rubén Mejía, and Enrique Sosa.

At the end of that Sunday’s lesson, I remember my father telling me that I had been his star pupil and that I would do well in school. What I remember best about those soccer matches on my street are the stones we used for goalposts, the arguments over whether a goal had actually been scored or if it had hit the “post” (in this case, the stone), and the times when the game was interrupted because the ball was run over by a car, or because it landed on a neighbor's roof and they refused to give it back.

At the end of the summer of 1967, I went to the Transición class taught by Mrs. Eva Carbajal de García. My father’s words proved prophetic: I earned a Diploma of Honor for taking first place.

Learning to read and write was like love at first sight for me. A stubborn, lifelong love. A love I began by singing this popular tune from my childhood:

A, b, c, ch

la cartilla se me fue

por la calle San José

no me pegues mamacita

porque ya la sé.

New Hampshire, USA

February, 2012

Aphabet primer, Phonetic Syllabary, 

Coquito book and Palmer Method notebook

Eduardo & the Transition Class of 1967

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