Students´ childhood memories (course 15-16):
I remember...
In the 60ies and 70ies there weren't too many cars in the streets, so
children would spend long hours playing outside, till the hour of going home
and having dinner. Children played football or hide-and-seek. But in my memory
there is another game we used to play in those days: Bottle-Cap
Championship.
The first thing you had to do was to collect some bottle caps. If you wanted to play fast you had to choose the thin ones whereas if you wanted to play strongly you had to choose the heaviest.
Then it was time to start being creative. First of all, we cleaned the
bottle caps very well. Then, we thought of our favourite football team and what
their best players were. After that we would cut circles on a sheet of paper.
In each circle we painted the colours of our football team and the name of one
player. As a ball, we used a chickpea or a ball made of aluminium foil. Our own team was ready!
We only needed some friends with their own teams so we could begin the
championship. We had to draw a pitch on the floor, put the bottle caps in their
places, and begin to enjoy this traditional game, somewhat forgotten nowadays.
I have a vivid memory of those evenings playing with my friends. It didn't
matter who the winner was. The only important thing was to spend time together,
enjoying each other´s company, because
we didn´t have video games, computers, mobile phones or whatsapp. We were
in face to face contact, in a personal relationship, not a virtual one. Well,
those were other times, ancient times, I know...
Fernando
I remember….
When I was about 10, I used to play at being a teacher. I had a blackboard
in my bedroom and I used to spend the winter afternoons acting as if I had a
lot of pupils, explaining, correcting… I even had a teacher’s notebook, a sort
of treasure for me, one that my mother, who was a teacher as well, had given to
me. I enjoyed myself a lot although I was always alone. One Saturday afternoon
my brother, who is 3 years younger than me, and Sonia, a friend of his, were
playing at our home and I managed to involve them in my magical world. I felt
really happy. I was excited because I finally had real students, so I began to
ask them to do maths exercises, and then a dictation, and then to draw, and
everything had to be done in absolute silence, obviously. An hour later Sonia
told my mother that she wanted to go home. ´Why? ´my mother asked, ´What´s the
matter? ´.´Nothing´, said Sonia, ´It’s just that I´m fed up with doing so much
homework and anyway, it’s Saturday today! ´ Sonia never came to our home again
to play with me but…I am a teacher now and she was probably my first pupil.
Thank you Sonia!!
Elena B.
I remember...
I’m not 100% sure this is actually my very first memory, but it certainly
is one of the earliest. I remember riding my first bicycle, which was blue,
while my dad was trying to teach me how to ride it, for the first time, without
the small rear wheels. My dad was running by my left side as I was pedaling
faster and faster, while he was shouting: “Come on, almost there, you got it…”
and I was scared as hell, replying things like: “Please don’t let me loose
because I´m gonna fall …!”
He kept reassuring me, all the time, that he was still holding the bicycle by
the seat, and he certainly kept running by my side, until suddenly he said:
“Look, you are on your own now…!!” and he showed me both his hands.
It was then when I realized that indeed I was riding alone, and in the
midst of my excitement, I kept speeding… without taking into account that I had
just learned how to ride in a straight line, but had no clue about how to make
a turn!! Which of course I became aware of as soon as I reached the first curve
and carried on straight, obviously stumbling and falling down.
But my father says he can still remember the smile on my face when I stood
up rubbing my bruised knees… I didn’t care about them at all.
Julián
I remember….
One of my first memories is one day at school, when I was five or six and
the teacher was talking about the hunger and poverty in Biafra. I told her that
my cousins and their parents were living there and they didn’t go hungry and
weren’t poor. When I got home, I told my mother what had happened at
school, and she started to laugh and told me: “You got the wrong end of the
stick. I’m sure she was talking about Biafra and you understood Riaza (that was
the village where my relatives lived)”. At that moment I felt really
embarrassed.
Julia
I remember...
When I was about 3, my mother used to give me yoghurt every afternoon.
I would be sitting in front of the TV and I used to put sugar on top of the
yoghurt and wait until it melted. Then I would eat the sugar with the spoon,
carefully, without eating the yoghurt, because I didn’t like it. Later, of
course, my mother would always make me eat that awful yoghurt without sugar.
Natalia
I remember…
We used to go to my grandmother´s house every weekend. The whole family:
aunts, uncles, cousins…25 people!!! A large extended family. It was so funny!
My grandmother had a heart of gold and endless patience. I have a vivid image:
when we arrived she was cooking our favourite dishes always with her best
smile on…despite the mess! We used to make up stories and to act them out in front of the adults. I even remember football matches along the infinite
corridor and a naughty, lively cousin moving like a spider between the two walls …
Marta
I remember...
My grandparents used to live on a farm in a small village far away and I
remember travelling, every summer, with my three little sisters in the backseat
of my parents´ car on an eight-hour trip from Madrid to Cáceres in order to
visit them, despite the fact that it was only two hundreds kilometers away.
The boot of the car used to be full of suitcases, with presents for all my
relatives, with home-made food to eat during the journey, with second hand clothes that my mum would collect from our neighbours and what´s more, every
now and then my parents bought the ultimate technological device such as a
black and white television for my grandparents.
The journey was very tiring. I would argue with my sisters, and my father
stopped occasionally
so we could go to the bathroom, or eat or take a nap.
But now I remember those days fondly.
Paulina
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