The First Time I Wrote My Name

Saraswati entered a classroom as a student for the first time when she was fifty years old. For most of her life, education had belonged to other people. She had lived without being able to read and write in the way she wanted. Then she received another chance. She began learning alongside her young daughter. Letters. Numbers. Words. Things other people may have learned as children became discoveries in middle age. Then came one particular moment. Saraswati wrote her own name. For somebody else, writing a name might be automatic. For Saraswati it represented something entirely different. Years of being unable to do it. Years of opportunities that had passed. And now, suddenly, proof on a page that learning had no expiration date. She described it as one of the happiest moments of her life. Sometimes happiness arrives when we finally do something other people stopped noticing they could do. What small achievement felt enormous because you knew how long it had taken you to reach it? This is an editorial retelling of a documented account. Original storyteller: Saraswati Tamang. Country: Nepal. Source: UNICEF Nepal.