The Last Walk to School Before I Was Taken to the Orphanage

Why do I need to learn to read when I will be walking cows my whole life?

Most villagers own a cow or two but don’t have a pasture. They walk their cows to grassy areas and stay with them while they eat.

When Maria and Nikolai, my biological parents, were working, Maria would wake me up and there would be milk and bread with jelly, butter or wet bread with sugar. I would walk alone to school. It wasn’t far. Classes lasted from morning to…