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The bullies at my Mechanical-Agriculture school in the countryside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, were tough, overly so with the newcomers.

A magnificent semi-colonial building probably as old as the time of the Spanish occupation before independence. This was a rough mixed-crowd of city slickers from the capital, hard as-nails early risers from the deep country, and German-Saxon sons of immigrants from Hessen or Bavaria with impossibly long names to even attempt to remember.

It was built in the middle of the plains, not a hill in sight, and barely 2 miles from the beach.

Photo by Joe Dudeck on Unsplash

The South Atlantic coastal views were postcards that would remain in your memory forever. It didn’t matter the season or the weather. The splendor and enormity of the space were glorious. Dunes and huge ocean waves as far as the eye could see. And you, the observer, part of the landscape as well.

The wind would sweep sand in your face with gusts so strong they’d make you turn.

We walked that stretch early in the morning almost every other day, before ‌classes started.

The whole school was made up of maybe 60 or 70 kids, between the ages of 12 and 17. We would be there all week until Friday, go home for the weekend, then return on Sunday night or Monday morning, at the latest.

It was a hard school to be in, especially if you were a newbie. The bullying would be non-stop, and the elders took us, the youngest, for target practice at their pleasure while the teachers, supervisors, and others in charge just looked the other way.

Everyone for themselves. They took no prisoners.

Even though I was a city boy, I wasn’t tough and knew little about fighting.

What I liked to do was investigate the world around me and observe everything. I was bitten by the curiosity bug early on. And dared to write about it.

Inevitably, I was found out and became the butt of their jokes and their bullying from that moment on.