Now I did, just so that someone could teach me to read my storybook. Three years went by with my desire growing and growing, and then I was ten. I was ten at last! A man everyone called mallam took aside the twelve of us who had become ten.
Of course we had not all actually become ten on the same day. But the children had a common birthday assigned to them when they arrived at the home. If a group of children were for instance aged seven, they were told the particular day in three years' time when they would all be regarded as ten year old.
The mallam explained in detail the work of the almajiri, but I wasn't listening. I was too excited to pay attention. I cared only to learn to read. When he finished explaining, i marched up to him and said, "sir, can you read? Can you teach me to read?"