Born in a city, in a country, at a time, where & when Education was a hobby.
In this part, I will be mainly talking about my studies and life till high school, which was in Safi, Morocco.

I am hoping to inspire young people, especially from Morocco, Africa or other developing countries, to work for their dreams. Because only hard work pays off.

My Early Dreams

One day, I asked my parents, how can I be a king. They said, it's impossible. They were freaking out and asked me to not talk about it in the street. I had to obey and dropped that dream with the time.

I asked after, what was the best job after a king, they told me CEO of Bank Al-Maghreb. I told my mother, Ok, I promise I will reach that job.

I also had other dreams that I still remember till today. Like when I wanted to save 10.000 MAD (1000 EUR) before dying. I was always asking my parents, how hard would it be to collect all this money, they would say I can do it, but somehow it wasn't very convincing.

When I was in high school, I started thinking so much about traveling, sadly, it was not accessible. None of my parents have ever traveled abroad. It was a big dream for me thinking that one day I would take an airplane. I would always stare at them in the sky and wonder if I would be some day the lucky sitting inside and traveling to another country. I was wondering how are people abroad, how do they live, dream or laugh. I was also interested in knowing how advanced are they compared to Morocco.

With the time, I learned that my dreams were very small.

At the age of 21, I already got my very first few thousands euros. And yeah it was mine, not from my parents.

At the age of 24, I have visited 4 continents, and at the time of writing this blog, I have already visited 15 countries including Japan, USA, South Korea, Indonesia, …

I still cannot believe that the young child, who spent most of his summers playing in Oued Bacha, a popular neighborhood of Safi, is now living in Germany, speaking four languages and working for one of the most advanced software research centers in the world.

I feel I am living a dream. A wonderful dream where I can even dream bigger.

Was I poor?

I was born and grow up in a relatively small city in Morocco, known for fish, pottery and phosphate.

Both my parents were working in the public sector, they had enough money to feed their three children. But, like many Moroccan families, we were dependent on the monthly salary. We were struggling almost every end of month.
We've always lived in rented houses. Ten in total ^^

I met in my life other people in Safi who couldn't really afford even a proper house. I would say, we were an average income family in Safi.

I am thankful for my parents, because, I know it's not easy. They did their best.

Primary School

I studied my primary school in Mohamed Laalaj Benhim in Biada, Safi.

Most of the schools in my city were mixed, but mine was only for male. It was brutal. When we had time, we used to go to girl's school, which wasn't that far, hoping that we will get picked or that we will see our crush girl. ^^

Looking back at it, it was a pretty random experience, I had few "good" teachers. Still can't forget the one who told me "You will have a great future in mathematics", that sentence lived with me for a very long time.

After the final exams, I remember how we were all talking about the coming year when we will finally study in a mixed school. It was just an amazing, frightening and exciting thing to imagine.

Middle School

This is when I started really taking education more seriously, before it was only a hobby that made me feel special.
I just realized I was lacking a lot compared to other students coming especially from private schools. My french was really bad compared to them.

Coming from a popular background and being before in a public male school, made me somehow feel more comfortable hanging out only with the bad boys of the class. Thus, the very first impression the new classmates had about me wasn't wowed. I had to prove myself.

One funny story that I still laugh about. I was somehow put in an elite class with a lot of good students and children of teachers, politicians and other important people in the city.

From the beginning, I attracted attention because I was very active in the math class. Few nerdy students approached me one day, and asked me about my previous grades and where did I study my primary school, after they knew, they ignored me, because their previous grades were really high compared to mine. The conversation took only 2 min, after, they went away and kept ignoring me for several weeks after.

I felt at that moment, that I really want to study and rock. I want to prove to myself and to the world that I can do it.
The whole first semester, I was rocking in the exams, but I never showed my scores. First, because the "elite" of the class were a little snobbish, and second my friends had usually bad grades so I just didn't want them to feel bad.

The final results of the semester were announced, but no one knew who is first in the class. Well, they thought it was one of the "elite" students. They all said publicly their scores (max ~15/20), then I just realized I am actually the first (~16/20). I stayed quiet, till my crazy friend, who is by the way the last one in the class, asked me, I told him, then he jumped from the table, and was screaming, it's Zakaria our Major, our rockstar, … haha

A chaotic moment in the class, some nerds started crying, cause they weren't first as usual, and all the crazy guys of the class were happy cause I made it, their dude made it … haha

After this year, I just found my passion in studying, and was decided to be always first. I wanted it so much.

High School

Finally, I started getting proper pocket money from my parents, around 20 MAD (2 EUR) per week. Almost rich ^^

I chose to go to another public high school that was far from my house, because it had a good reputation in Math. I had to take the bus (30 min). Thus, most of my new classmates were new, and no one from my middle school.

From the very beginning I knew I wanted to do "Science Math".

During my first year, we had a physics teacher who didn't teach us anything about the subject. First of all, he wasn't there quite often, and even when he was there, he would talk to us about relationships, sex, … well that was useful but just not the right class for it ^^

You wouldn't believe it, but we didn't have any exam during the whole year in physics. When the time came to give grades to students after the first semester, the teacher would ask me to meet him privately to give grades to my classmates, given that I know how good or bad they are. Just crazy. My reaction was a polite refuse by just missing our appointment.

By the end, we have done it during the class, this time two other students were involved with me. We would just give grades to our classmates. Our strategy was to first ask people about their expectations, then adjust it based on the class's average. Looking back at it, that was just insane.

Our high school was so corrupted. Science Math was kind of the elite class in the whole institution, thus, a lot of children of teachers, doctors and some other influencing people in the city would choose it. Not that they were Math gurus, but only because of its prestige.

Grades were to trade. If you pay more you could be simply the first in the class. The daughter of our Math teacher got 19.9/20 making her even one of the top students in the country, while in the final national exam, she got 10/20.

Cheating is the norm in the final exams in Morocco. However, in some subjects like Math, even cheating cannot help.

I was proud I didn't cheat at all during the whole exam, even in the philosophy exam where even the good students cheat.

I managed to be the first in my high school in the final exams :)

I have a lot of beautiful memories still from high school, a lot of fun, nice people ^^

Find Positive Friends

I would always hear from friends when I was trying to study hard, that I shouldn't do so, because I could become crazy or have a burnout. They would always mention that they know someone who became so because of studying too much.

Worse, even our Arabic teacher in high school would tell us to not study much.

Others said, that education doesn't help and only rich people will make it in this world.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Rich people have a lot of advantages in life, but, your only way to make it in this world is education. No one will try to stop you from educating yourself. You will only get more and more respect, even from rich people, if you are well educated.

Moreover, you are far from getting crazy because of studying too much, I have met some people in my life who really work harder than me, I am trying my best still to work like them. They are not crazy, they are CEOs, experts, …
Find your passion, focus on your dreams and work hard for them.

To be continued…

Cheers from Berlin

Zak

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