Page - 29 - in Tina and Amir & Ella - English

5 10 15 20 25 30 29 Episode 3 Saif was from Chechenia and was also in our class. He tried to look cool and important like his older brother. He was good at playing basketball and he was always very hungry. He told us that his coach had told him he was growing so fast, that´s why he needed a lot of food. I knew that he did not want to take out his lunch box, be- cause the children in class made remarks about him: “Saif, al- ways has such strange food in his lunch box.” “Yuck.” “How it smells.” Saif looked as if he would have loved to share with others or sometimes swap his lunch. But he never dared to say any- thing. Not even to Valentin, who seemed to be his best friend. Some of the kids in my class shared their lunch every day, some of them had cereal bars, chips, a flatbread or pizza. Some had ham sandwiches. One day Saif told me that he could not even look at a ham sandwich – and when I asked him he told me, because he could remember why. “Once, one of my friends, Abdu, whose family originally came from Turkey, had forgotten his lunch. So the teacher offered him bread with some meat in it. He was so hungry and bit into the bread impatiently. But suddenly the children laughed at him and shouted – ‘You eat pork – that´s ham. Now you are unclean.’ - I can remember Abdu crying, running away - through the woods hiding himself and rolling in the leaves to get clean again. I can also see the picture of my own grandmother in front of me, who told me to respect the beliefs and to stay clean never eating any of the unclean beasts.