I was so excited to start the first grade here in Puerto Rico. The night before the first day of school I laid out my clothes, and I even laid out my green barrette to match my green shirt. I could not sleep at all. Every time I closed my eyes, my brain would be filled with happy pictures of my new school. I went with mommy to register me a few weeks ago, and the school did not look like a school at all. It looked like a big beautiful house. It was a Montessori school. I was not sure what Montessori meant, but I could not wait to go to this fun looking school, and learn lots of first grade stuff, and meat lots of new friends.

I guess I finally fell asleep, because the next thing I knew mommy was waking me up just like she always does, “wake up beautiful”. At first I was still very sleepy, I stretched, and yawned, and stretched some more. Suddenly, I remembered that today was the first day of school. All of a sudden, I was not tired anymore. I just wanted to hurry up, and get dressed as fast as I could. I rinsed my hair with a new conditioner that smelled like candy. Mommy added a little coconut oil, combed out my afro, and she let me put my green barrette in all by myself. After breakfast we walked the two blocks to my new school.

It was even more beautiful than I had remembered. The teacher was beautiful. She spoke English and Spanish. Most of the kids did too. My two best friends were Melody and Brianna. Melody was Asian, and Brianna was dark like me. Melody had long straight hair like my dolls. Brianna had hair like me except her hair was a lot longer. She could wear long braided ponytails. Hair did not matter here at my new school. We learned, and played all day long. When mommy picked me up the first thing she said was “child what happened to your hair”? Mommy said my afro was a wild fro. That made me laugh.

We tried to keep my afro, but after a few days of school we decided to change to braids, because I could not keep my hands out of my hair. I played so much that I would get sweaty, and start rubbing and scratching my itchy scalp. It was all worth it though, because we had our very own tree house, swings and monkey bars, at my new school. I loved break time. I was happy when we started to braid my hair. I did not have to worry about turning my afro into a wild fro.