Ramon always gets to class late. Ramon is always well dressed, his hair is clean, bright and tidy. His shoes are not new but they look appropriate for a child of school age who is very active and growing up.
Ramon does not know his ABCs, or his numbers. When the teacher asks him to read he puts his head down or he stutters and the teacher asks another child to read. Ramon’s mum is responsible for Ramon’s appearance. Ramon’s father makes him work on their farm from the sun rise to the sun set. It is only thanks to the efforts of the mum that Ramon goes to school. Ramon’s father thinks that learning to read and write it is not necessary because Ramon – according to his father – will end up working in the big factory and abattoir.
Ramon left school when he was ten years old to work the farm his father had. Time continues to run and one day I saw Ramon. He was on the TV being interviewed. He is a rich man now, and he speaks in a very educated voice. How did he get there I wonder?
My curiosity grew with the passing days and I decided to investigate. Apparently, one day Ramon, at the age of 14 years, decided that he wanted to read and write and understand numbers. So, he went to night-school after doing all his tasks during the day. Because he was already an adolescent, his dad did not have so much control over him. So he went. Because he had spent so many years working with animals, the experience gave him a head start for the veterinary studies he followed. He was successful in this. He wanted to study, he wanted to get ahead, he wanted to help animals and he knew it. He had grown up understanding the psychology of the chickens and their behaviour in the courtyard, he understood the behavior of the horses on the prairie, he understood the flight of the birds and the meaning of the sheep’s bleating. All that experience he transferred into a book that was sold by the thousands. It was translated as a text book and sold in other places where there were farms with animals. Sometimes it is only the wish to do something
that gets you there.
Ramon lives with his own family on a farm, not far away from his father’s farm where his mother and father still live.
I
Tandi Tales 