I REMEMBER...

I remember the days when i was taken from Lagos and dumped in a secondary school in far away Osun state. It was a crème school my dad said just before he picked up my admission letter. How can a unity school be a crème school, agreed it was a pretty new school but still it was a federal school. I had heard stories of how students especially juniors were beaten in such schools and i wasn’t going to be beaten so i planned to watch my back in school. We had a good “princi” that time so flogging wasn’t allowed but as soon as they changed her we began to see pepper.

It started in ss1, the class in high school where u are allowed to braid your hair and your pinafores were exchanged for skirts. We thought we had achieved some level of freedom and audacity, little did we know that our seniors had it coming especially for the newbies that thought they were all, i was in a certain purple house called violet house, with the most evil prefects especially the house captain; Grace A. She was rumoured to have been a man in her previous life, she was Athletic, no seriously athletic, she played all sort of sports that time and she was in the school relay team and all and she was UUUgggglly... Damn! Looked like a man and she was just the one my mum handed me over to in junior 1.

Anyways, it was a hard and fast rule that all ss1 girls would get toilets as their daily morning chores. (Anyone that went to a pro unitate school should agree with me), so the day i was assigned my toilet i wasn’t surprised. We were 4 girls to handle 3 toilets and 3 bathrooms. I quickly chose my T and got a padlock to keep it closed from people who couldn’t control their bowels. One of us want quite lucky cos he toilet door was missing so we all agreed to let students use hers and then we would take turns washing it.

Every Saturday morning we had inspection, these was when princi and her cohorts would come into our space and decide if we kept it clean, any complain forthwith would attract severe punishment after inspection.

Unfortunately there was no water that period so we had to be extra miserly with water when we were washing and that led our fat /insanely obese Vice principal Admin to say “Can anyone see that smell coming from the toilet” we quickly disagreed saying we only perceived it, which got killer looks from grace A. That meant only one thing. We were in for it. So immediately they left our U-shaped hostel, the four of us were ordered to kneel down very close to each other.

Grace told us to pick a partner, i chose a short gal Bunmi, which i am grateful i did, i was beginning to get intrigued but suddenly grace told us to start knocking ourselves and that whoever didn’t knock someone would be in trouble. Just imagine four people scrambling on their knees trying to knock each other’s head and at the same time trying to avoid getting knocked. It was hilarious by considerably painful, after that experience we were extra careful to waste water even when there was none. The next term we were relieved of our toilet duties but as if that wasn’t enough encounter with grace, i had another one memorable one.

After lunch was siesta, lunch was tiny, old gal was trying to rush to the dorm before siesta so i could soak before siesta as eating wasn’t allowed at that time. Unfortunately i didn’t make it so the soaking had to wait till after siesta. As i got up rushed to take a shower, it was past 4 and time for prep,i wanted to soak s badly and some ass of a prefect was banging the dorm gate. After 6 bangs, it was lockdown, that day jazzy didn’t send her, i wanted to take my Ijebu garri so bad that i was willing to be locked inside.
I was locked with other gals but suddenly the gate swung open and madam grace was inside the hostel threatening fire and brime to whoever was still in the dorm. I was dressed, carrying my already soaked cup and was rushing out when grace saw me and held me, gave me the worst slap till date and poured the garri on my head, emptied the whole cup that is, and ordered me to leave the dorm. I have not really like garri since then and how could i forget when they finally left and we were seniors. It felt damn good.

We had this window that we called “Jumbosco”, actually any window could be called that but it had to have an opening that we could use to get in and out of dorm at odd times. There was always a chair at the entrance to allow us stepping into the dorm, and u can imagine how many jumbosco’s were sealed and many more opened. Or the time that we would cook sumptuous meals in the dorm and when we were caught, my house produced only one spoilt ring boiler, while other houses sold out with tubers of yam, various types of hot plates and of course quick cooks like noodles and rice.

Violet house was beaten and we were called cultists for cooperating amongst ourselves, just a day before our WAEC maths paper, we were detained in front of princi’s house for hours. It was fun, pure undiluted fun. Fun that doesn’t come easy these days especially with the stress of Lagos life and work... Still haven’t gotten one yet so if u need to hire a smart fine looking sista, u can reach me. All i want sometimes is to relive some of those experiences, not just the punishment part... sometimes i remember...I really do.