6:30 a.m. the alarm buzzes, I wake up tired and annoyed. My mom is multitasking between making me sandwiches and ironing my clothes. My books and notebooks are all over the room, I pack them while having my cereal. It’s 7:00 a.m. the school bus is waiting for me, the driver is mad cause I’m late again. I rush down the stairs with untied shoes, one hand in my jacket the other is barely finding balance between holding the bag and wearing the jacket properly. 7:25 a.m. I enter Guiliguian College wearing my pink shirt, grey pants and black shoes, 7:30 a.m. the class begins.
Guiliguian College was established in 1921 in Aleppo, Syria by a group of Armenian refugees who were deported to Aleppo in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide. This was the school that my grandparents attended, my dad also graduated from here and I was a proud student of this school for 15 years. Guiliguian was an old house that was later turned into a school located in the old districts of Aleppo.
My last visit to the school was on July 9, 2012 the day I moved to Armenia. Unfortunately I couldn’t end my journey at Guiliguian, I completed my 11th grade took my documents and left. It never occurred to me that this would be the last time I see my school, or those are the last moments I spent at Guiliguian.
In Dec. 2016 during Christmas break I open my eyes in the morning and as usual I check my Facebook. I notice more than 10 messages, and countless notifications, I open them and crash. All of them are pictures of destruction, everything is gone.
The place where I learned my first letter…
The yard where I ran around and climbed trees…
The place where my identity as an Armenian was formed…
The desks, the classrooms that witnessed countless laughs, tears, love stories, fights, friendship, food, debates, books, poems…
The stairs (known as the punishment place) where we sat down feeling the guilty pleasure of being kicked out of the class… All gone.
However, the memories I want to remember about Guiliguian are…
The smell of jasmine in the school yard…
The echo of the kids’ laughter…
My first opinion piece in 5th grade…
And the endless dreams from having a projector at the school to dreams about a better and more human world.
-Houry Pilibbossian
thecriticalspace 