The farewell to Mr Yusif after 40 Years-Manarat Jeddah Alumni

 The Manarat Jeddah Reunion happened in  Jeddah after a long wait.

So why we the wait? Mr BA Yusif is leaving Manarat Jeddah (owned by Maarif Education) after 40 years of teaching .  I remember him coming to the school as it if was few years ago. Actually 40 years has passed. The year was 1985.   Our class  is  ‘Class of 1989’, Manarat Jeddah.  The formula to get the year which we were studying classs is like this(I formulated).  Year= Class N-2 to ClassN-1.

Say Class 7. Mr Yusif came in grade 7. I might no be able to remember the years of  how do I get the year he came. 7-2 to 7-1.  That is 5 to 6.  Well It was the 1980s.  The three digit are same :198.  The Last Digit is 5 to 6. This translates to 1985 to 1986. Other classes can make their own formula. For class of 1988, it s Class N -1 to Class N. They got it easier in calculation.

The first day he came was being friendly and I shook  his hands. He smilingly handshakes my hand.Later on you find out he meant business.

The most important thing about him was he made sure you understood the concepts.   He comes in middle of the week,say Wednesday. For first 15 minutes he jokes and talks with a smile and then says ‘Surprise Test!” Many of us were sure that since about 15 minutes passed no Surprise Tests” . Yet there was. We were not surprised any more.

The first day he implemented Surprise Tests” was like this. We said”You did not telll us!” We were angry ,huh what is this? Most class tests which we had was informed earlier by respective teachers.

He relied(something like this):”I don’t have inform you earlier about surprise tests. You have to study to keep updated.”

This concept after a while,grade 8 we got it. (In 7th grade, he was our science teacher. )

Study before start of week almost everyday and be ready for chemistry tests. To understand this concept we needed a year or so.

He introduced us to projects. But then it was called experiments.

I think Mr Sateha was our head master. Mr Sateha really got angry and was shouting for some reason or other in Arabic. That is a different story.

The Projects we got in class Seven(7) was :

• Chromatography
• Periscope. Using Mirrors placed at  45 degrees a periscope could be made.

I still remember going outside the house to pick plants for Chromatography.  The area was in Jeddah in 1986. It is no longer there since area is bulldozed to make new buildings and modern area. It is true we have a nostalgic emotion since we siblings grew up in Jeddah and a sense of attachment outsiders cannot understand but nod with a smile, trying to be nice about it.

In the holidays we went to visit our  country(family)  and got to see glimpses of the match between England and Argentina which was captained by Maradona. I loved playing football but not good fan of of watching. The reason I got up at nigh to see since friends and relatives shouting with sound of goals. Later would know the event labeled as “Hand of God by Maradona ”

The legend of Football came to visit Jeddah and Manarat Jeddah students played in his honor

A class friend ,Nael in Jeddah had said “There should have been a steet named after Mr. Yusif”.

 I agreed, He played a major role as a teacher in our student life. He encouraged ,motivated,rebuked me until I got A in Chemistry. This was credit to Mr Yusif.

We were taughts strange’ names : BCD extinguishers.

Bromo Chloro Di Flouro. The way he said ,got stuck in our minds.

Nael went further to compose a poem for him. Well Mr Lambert might be surprised to know he is in charge of English department in KSA.!