By Natnael Worku
Teacher: Olivia Sanders, John Muir School
Award: First Place, Fourth Grade Essay
I woke up to the smell of bean stew. The sun poured through the beautiful sand-made plexiglass. Suddenly, I just knew this was going to be an amazing day. I had only been in Ethiopia for a few weeks and they were pretty good. I came out the door of my personal quiet safe space and shouted, “Good morning everybody!” Nahom and Phoeben were not early birds at all. Usually I wasn’t either but I had a good feeling about this day, yet I didn’t know what it meant. Suddenly I looked up and saw my uncle standing up with a knife. My face dropped in astonishment.
“What’s that for?” I asked in horror! My uncle looked at me and grinned. I came outside to the driveway and saw my dad holding a poor defenseless sheep to the concrete and saw my uncle with the knife again. I immediately knew what the knife was for. He was going to kill the sheep. I saw him starting with the legs. “Bahhhhhhhhh!” the sheep shouted.
I ran all the way back to my room without looking back. I calmed myself down and just like that I was relaxed and felt that I could do anything. When I walked out of my room, I smelled this beautiful vanilla scent coming from the kitchen. Then we all went to dinner at the huge brown dining table. Nahom and Phoeben were so hungry; their mouths were watering like crazy! We blessed our food and ate.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the killing scene today, but I let it go. After that mouthwatering meal, my tummy was steaming hot for bed. I closed my eyes, forgot about the murder, and went to sleep faster than you can say pizza.