Titbits from Boarding School

ONE.


Nepa had taken light that night so I was actually changing in the dark, everyone was talking in a hushed tone so that the senior next door would not hear them. All my other mates were tucked in their beds. In the process of Changing, Tomi (he was in SS2 then) walks to the divider between our rooms and shouts "One boy, last to come" I was still putting on my trouser so I could not run. It was dark so everyone else pretended to be sleeping. I was the only one standing. Tomi did not see anyone run so he came into the room and saw me.

"Are you deaf, did you not hear me"

"Am coming, I was just changing"

"You are a baggar!!!you must think I am joking with you, follow me"

I followed him to the next room which was also dark. As Tomi got to his bed, he swirled around and landed a "nice one" on my cheek. We used to joke around saying "If I slap you, you'll see stars" but that day Tomi slapped me, I really saw stars, and they twinkled too." I dont remember how many they were but I stopped counting because they were twinkling so fast.



TWO.


For some reason, we all use to get the munchies before going to bed each night. Niyi Akintolu had bought his sugarcane, Diran bought his garri and ekpa (groundnut), Yusuf always had an endless supply of Kellogs Cornflakes (Top of the line) and he was a miser too because he used to sweat on his nose. Now Segun had the best gari you could ever come across, it is condusive to smoking and swelling. If you add milk and ekpa, you will be high for the rest of the night: Ijebu Gari, you cant find anything better anywhere else. If you have money, you should invest in Ijebu gari.

Anyway, everyone is eating quietly for two reasons. They dont want to be "contoured" by someone else and secondly, you dont want to be caught by a senior otherwise you will end up with a 20% stake in your own food as opposed to 100%. We used to call that Silent Gwazing, eating alone and in silence. Everyone was capable of eating quietly but Niyi had sugar cane so all you heard from his mosquito net was the slurshing of someone sucking juice out of the cane. So when Christopher Oloyingbo (Senior terrorist of Senegal House) walked into the room, he asked who that was. You could hear a pin drop.

"Oya, if you are sleeping raise up your hand"

Sorry Christo, we are not that stupid
"Eh ehn, you are all joking with me, all of you get down"


Some people got down but my name wasn't "all of you" so I stayed put.

Christo decided to beat the rest of us out of our pretend sleep. I must have rubbed my eyes so much because my eyes turned red enough to convince him I was actually sleeping. He lined us against the wall and proceeded to interrogate us. One by one we denied the said noise. He got to Niyi and Niyi fessed up quick "IT was my blanket that was talking" You know Christo did not find that funny so Niyi spent the rest of the night under Christo's bed while Christo ate his sugar cane and the remainng gari he was able to get from Segun.



THREE.


Dele's reply reminded me of another incident. Why is it that whenever one of your seniors failed, repeated and became your mate, the person was almost treated like trash or should I say there was a lot of disrespect. It happened a lot at my school. A guy who I will call Tunde was repeating for the second time. My set was the second that was catching up with him. He was in Niger house and one night he decided to soak gari in a cup, put it under his bed and leave it to swell. He had a complete set (Gari, sugar, grounut and milk) The guy must have been really hungry because he fell asleep waiting for the gari to reach maximum optimization.

In comes Tobinson, hungry on a friday night, he had no energy to even do his bathroom duty for saturday inspection. As he walked past Tunde's bed, he thought he saw the reflection of water from under Tunde's bed but he checked to make sure. Jackpot. Garium Sulphate with its complements. He swiped the gari and walked away, two minutes later he came back with tunde's cup filled to the brim with water. He walked away and ate the whole thing which he had transfered into another bowl. Tunde woke up when junior boys were moving his bed with him on it. "Where's my gari????" The junior boys told him. Tobinson had threatened them and had told them to tell Tunde that the house master who so happened to be there had seized it. Gari was illegal so there was no way of him challenging the house master.



FOUR.


Did you ever have to smuggle food out of the dining hall for seniors. I did it a lot and even my school father had me smuggling his food. He got two loaves of bread but I used to eat one and say that it was seized or that it got crumbled where I hid it.

Mr. Ohakanu was our dining hall master. His presence was enough to make you kaka in your drowse even if you were not doing anything wrong. One morning he came to the DH unannounced and came to my house area. We use to seat according to our houses. He knew Senegal house was reknowned for all the food smugglers. Mr. Ohakanu climbed one table in our area and started starring at everyone one by one. The man must have had a ninth sense. He can sniff bread anywhere. He turned to Samson (An ajebutter who had just come from Yankee) and said where are you hiding it??


"I am not hiding anything sir"
"YOu think I am a fool...?"
"No Sir, No Sir"


Mr. Ohakanu bent down towards Samson....thunder slap and headbutt and bread started falling out of Samson's shirt and socks. Yes his socks, people used to hide bread everywhere. In their socks, pants and I am not talking trousers, I am talking underwear, in between their body and their elbow, some even used it as shoulder pads but seeing as we did not have Football players, that was the easiest way to get caught. Samson ended up on detention for three weeks.

Two weeks later, it was Victor Jakpa's turn. Jakpa was smuggling Ewa (Beans) for the 2 most notorious boys in the schools. He always had 2 full plates of food. It was tuesday afternoon so we had eaten beans. Jakpa's tactics for smuggling was to remain in the DH till everyone had left before he even went out. He hoped by then Mr. Ohakanu would have gone home. Na lie. Meanwhile, Raymond and Osahon were waiting for their beans. They had already chanced some junior boys of gari and they had their loaves of bread from ther morning. Jakpa carried the two hefty plates of beans and walked out. Mr Ohakanu who was talking to the kitchen staff in the corner outside saw him and turned his car around.
"Victor Jakpa, come here" Jakpa froze. "...Where do you think you are going with that food?"
"Emmmm mm"
"Whose food is it?" It was an abomination to reveal the names of the seniors you were smuggling food for in my school
"Its my own sir, all the people on my table did not come" "I see, okay sit down"
"What sir??" not sure he heard right
"I say sit down and bring out your cutlery"
Jakpa was not sure what Mr Ohakanu had in mind.
"Since its your own, Start eating"
After protesting several times, Jakpa started eating.
Jakpa ate, ate, ate until he had almost cleaned the two plates of beans. Mr. Ohakanu had made him eat almost a plate and half of beans until he could take it no more.
"If I ever catch you again, taking food out, you will be sorry, next time you see food, you will run. I trust you have enough protein to last you a lifetime. Now go and observe your siesta."
The poor boy could not move and he still had a story to tell when he got to the dorms.

The End