In an overcrowded primary school classroom, small children in blue gingham squeeze together on benches and on the packed earth floor. From among the tangle of youth protrudes an anachronistic body. Shoulders hunched over a child-sized desk in the front row, his walking staff leaning nearby, an eighty-four-year-old man strains to hear instructions on writing a lowercase letter a. Holding a pencil awkwardly, he struggles. The teacher pauses to adjust his grip. Slowly and almost tenderly, he forms his first letter.