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Never give up!

By Hakima Bourhlid—


In 2000, when I was a 10-year old kid I was a student in Tahala college in Morocco. This year was a sad year because it was the year of the death of our king, Kin Hassan the second. I still remember my geography classroom that was room number 5 on the second floor. My geography book cover had a picture of the two biggest historical landmarks in the world. It had Statue of liberty, U.S.A and Eiffel tower, France. Every time I saw my book cover, I wished I can fly and go over there to see them directly. It was a kid dream that I never thought would come true one day.


My geography book was one of my favorite books because it kept me in dreams. This picture let me be an ambitious person that needed to study hard to be able to travel overseas. I was a very active student in geography more than any other subject because I was thinking that if I was a good student, God can help me achieve my dream “kid ambition."


After I finished this semester, I cut that picture from the book, I stored it in my memory's notebook, and I wrote all my dreams related to this picture. I wrote that one day when I grow up, I will be a successful businesswoman that will have a personal airplane and will be able to travel around the world. When we were kids, we thought that everything is easy, and all our dreams can easily come true.

I was living with this dream all my adolescence until I started realizing that this dream is not an easy thing that I can achieve easily just like I was thinking when I was a kid. When I grew up, I realized that life is hard, and dreams are just dreaming that are hard to realize. Little by little, I started giving up on my dream because I realized that this was too far from my academic and economic level.


I came from a semi-poor family and I knew they cannot travel in an airplane one day. In addition, I wasn’t a hard-working student, I was an average student that got little chances to go to a good university. Finally, I gave up, and I forgot about this dream because I knew that I will just hurt myself if I kept thinking about it. Every time, I saw these places on the internet or TV, or I heard that someone I know is traveling overseas I felt bad, but I convinced myself that it’s impossible. Sometimes, I was blaming my parents because they are poor, and they cannot do anything for me to change my situation, but I backed off and said that they didn’t choose their lives; it was out of their hands exactly like me.


With the passage of days, I began to forget and got less interested in this dream. After, I finished high school, I moved to another city to finish my studies. I went to Meknes an old imperial city, that was the capital city in the 17th century; it was a big city that is totally different from my small town, with a different life style, and I realized that people in my town are way behind. A majority of them are poor and there are just a few of them that own a car, but in this big city, I saw a lot of cars that I never saw before. People were dressing in expensive clothes, jewelry, handbags that I saw just in movies not in reality. I felt like I'm an insect among them.


My first day in the university, I saw some students coming there with nice cars. I was shocked and I started comparing myself to them and saw myself that I'm nothing in front of them. This was the worst year of my life. I didn’t have a friend; nobody friended me because I'm poor and I don’t wear nice clothes. I failed my first year, and my dad was so worried about me, and he told me that if I don’t want to study, I can come back home because he didn’t have extra money to support me. I felt mad when I heard that because I saw how people are living and how my dad talks about the two cents that he sent me.

I started thinking about how I can get money to change my situation. I started giving academic lessons for kids in my neighborhood and that went well. And all the money I gained, I spent it on clothes and handbags. My life started changing little by little. I started making some friends and gave more attention to my studies. The most important, I regained my self-confidence. I became a happy person again, and I stopped comparing myself to others. After I finished my two year degree, I tried to find a job, but I couldn't. Then, I came back to my town. I worked as a French teacher in a private school for a while.


One day a man came to my house asking my dad for my hand in marriage. When my dad told me that he lives in America I was shocked, and I said “What, America, are you serious?” I was happy finally I will achieve my dream, but at the same time I was worried about this man, worried if he is the best person to suit me. He came to my house and when I sat with him, we talked for a little bit. He was nice and I liked him. He left and we kept chatting for more than 6 months on Facebook. He was a nice person and I felt in love with him. We got married, and I joined him in the United States of America. The first thing I did when I just came here, I asked him to visit The Statue of Liberty. This day was the happiest day of my life, I enjoyed it a lot. I realized that nothing is impossible even if it looks impossible, and if God wants you to do something you are going to achieve it one day. Just don’t give up.

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