Laughing all the way, we arrived at the village elementary school. At this moment, there were already quite a few children at the gate. These kids come from distant homes just to attend classes. It's eight in the morning now, and many of them have to get up at five or six in the morning, then walk for two or three hours to get here for classes. When school lets out at five-thirty in the afternoon, they have to walk several hours back home again, with many of them being asked by their families to collect some firewood on the way home.
This is a portrayal of childhood for kids in the mountains. They have no KFC, no computers, no gaming consoles, no Ultraman, and no Transformers. All they have are tattered books, dilapidated backpacks, and pencils worn down so short they can't be shortened any further.
Many things that we only read about in books truly happen to these kids.
