One evening, I visited these two gentlemen and asked if they would accept the responsibility as guarantors. Both offering the same excuse, they refused. What actually happened was, when I visited the first family, family A, they said, “Please first get the approval from family B.” Upon my visit to family B, I got the reply, “If only the A family could give their confirmatio… ”

There was nothing I could do but travel back and forth between the two families’ houses which were separated by a distance of about one kilometer. The time had passed midnight with night turning into morning. A daughter from family B, annoyed by the racket her father was causing, got out of bed and persuaded her father to assent. This is how I finally got the seal of approval from the savings and credit association. (By the way, daughter B ended up enrolling in our school.) The time had passed three a.m. when we finally got home.

Even now, as I recall hurrying along the four kilometers home alone, pushing a new born baby in a carriage on that dark street, the bitter night cold still penetrates me to my soul.

Thanks to daughter B, the construction of the school building went smoothly, and in October, filled with hope for the future, we finally moved into the new school building with the scent of fresh wood, and began to take on the tasks of teaching.