I can still remember parts of my childhood that reflected the type of person I am now as an adult. Moving from one grade school to another, I went through many experiences that ship my personality and made me what I am now, patient and always being prepared. After school, in one of the suburbs of Algiers playing outside sports with my peers, practicing with the school handball team and playing the final meant a lot to me.

In sixth grade, our class was comparing to other classes pretty light. It was not that crowded, but outside in the soccer field, the back yards and the alleys it was. Usually we finished the last class around five pm and luckily the days in summer were long enough for after class’ hang out. When the school alarm went off, we ran home so fast, like someone trying to escape from jail. Carrying heavy school bags loaded with books, notebooks, pencils and pens. When I get home I threw my school bag wherever I find an empty spot, but most of the time by the corridor, it was my short cut because of our yard kitchen that allowed me to grab my sandwich in my way out. After class home was always a short stop for me. I had to run back to the soccer field after that heavy run from school trying to make it on time. If you are late, your only chance is to watch or you can still hang out on the alley or with some other friends on the yard, if you are not a soccer addicted like me. At that time the school selection for the inter schools tournament was the big event, soccer and handball were the main sports. My best friend Ali didn’t care much about it, and he was always a watcher, a yard player or sometimes a goal keeper, when they really needed somebody. However Aikido which didn’t have any competition was his thing.

After some practice our school coach decided to not to take me for the soccer team, he turned me down. He said you will play handball, which was not that popular, and I was not a big fun of, but I decided to go for it. We had to set a Practice schedule first; Monday and Thursday were our only practice days. We had a lot of fun practicing. I got to know other people from other classes and made new friends. Despite the fact that our practice was not that often we enjoyed it so much. We didn’t have to made that home short stop on Mondays and Thursdays now because practice started right after the last class at 5:15 pm using our inside handball field.

The next door school was our first victim, they were not that good, and we got the first game easily.  The only team we were afraid of was the school down town team. They were kind of professional, and the field we used to play on is the one they use for their weekly practice because most of them form the city national team.

Our final game was with the down town school. It was Thursday after noon; we met the coach by the schools’ entrance. We walked together as a military group getting ready for the last battle. Their advantage was the field; they were playing at home all of the time. Their mothers could watch them from their building s’ windows and didn’t even bother to come down to the field. It was our lucky day, when we tried to open the door of the handball field, it was locked. After a short argument we decided to play in our field that was our chance, our only chance.

It was Thursday afternoon, a hot summer day in 1989, the game was very competitive. We had all our classmates around us. I scored one of the last goals. We were the heroes. Luck was part of it, but if we were not prepared for it and having plenty of patient we could not have made it even to the final.