Nigerian Boarding School life; The
Lady I Have Become
Sitting on the top bed on a double bunk with a spring filled mattress, I
explored in my mind all the new possibilities and challenges that this new
phase in life would bring to me. I looked down at the pages of the welcome note
I was given and made a mental note of every key point, reassuring myself that I
would be ok. After the exciting and welcoming first day, I was faced with a
completely new world at Presentation National High School, PRESCO as we would
call it. I was not what you would imagine a typical boarder would be. I was
immature, dependent, somewhat spoilt, even though I didn’t think I was,
troublesome but a soft hearted and a cry baby. My six long years in boarding
school would change all that.
PRESCO was a single sexed, value driven, catholic post primary learning
institute with emphasis on spiritual, intellectual, physical moral and social
values in support of greater unity and love in the highly modern society. After school clubs and societies were structured
to enable all students discover their hidden potentials. Communalism is a must at PRESCO as you had no
choice but to work and build together.
Located in a small peaceful community, about one hour thirty minutes
away from where I live, far away from distractions of the contemporary society
in the southern part of Nigeria.
I vividly remember October 3rd 1999: it had been a continuous
countdown from the day I got my admission letter. The skies were clear as I
arrived with a new pair of shoe, my mattress, pillows and house-wears, as I went
through the registration process, room allocation, school mother allocation and
uniform sizing processes. My mother was
by my side all through and all was well with my world until the clock struck 6
and someone rang the school bell. It was time for all parents to leave and then
the tears started, from me and from her. I was left alone with a school mother I had no
idea about, she was nothing close to what my mother was like. Sandra Lee was an
SS3 student, who was assigned to me as my school mother, she was supposed to
care for and look out for me, encouraging me all the way, both academically and
emotionally.
Those tears never ended all
through my first three years in secondary school. I cried for various reasons,
from my first hard knock to the head from a senior student to my first grass
cutting punishment from the reverend sisters. But when my mother left that
first day, I wiped my tears and decided to face life as a boarder. Reading
through the welcome package, I reassured myself that this should be easy. I was
filled with an innocence that only kids have; I felt sure that school like
home, would be filled with love from all and sundry. Thinking back now, I
realized that it was all just a false assurance, because deep down, I had at
least an unconfirmed idea of what was waiting in store for me.
By the end of the first half of my first term the initial excitement of
living away from home had started to fade away and misgivings about this “new
adventure” had come to roost. I realize now that these misgivings had been
present on that first day, but had been suppressed by other happy and excited
feelings about my new adventure. Feelings of loneliness reared its head, and
was heightened by the absence of my family and specifically my mother who was really
the only friend I knew and trusted at this point in my life. My childhood
relationship with my mother is what I would describe as inseparable. This is perhaps due to the fact that aside
from my older siblings, she was all I knew and looked up to.
My mum had ten children, of whom I was the last. My dad was involved in a fatal car accident
when I was only 11 months old; this left my mum with the huge responsibility
of solely caring for all ten of us. She
also felt the need to show extra love and attention to me, probably because, I
was going to grow up without ever knowing my father, but still having a father
figure in my older brother. This over indulgence and inability to set
boundaries for me over the years resulted in me turning out spoilt. Looking
back now, I can say that my mum saw the initial signs of this spoilt attitude
in me and prompted her decision to send me to a boarding school on completion
of my primary school. (Elementary).
With my first half term break behind me, I still wanted my experience at
my school to be as fun as I had have always imagined it to be from reading Enid
Blyton books such as Mallory Towers. So, I braved up and got ready for another
school term resumption, However, my hopes were dashed once I resumed school for
the second half of the term. Apparently
the first half of the first term was termed “weeks of grace” and reality of
life as a boarder was going to begin in this second half. Looking back with my
current level of exposure, I can tag my boarding experience “child abuse”. The amount and severity of punishment I got
in the name of discipline, left a scar in me.
A scar that I now feel has contributed to my remodeling.
*
Going forward, I can never forget the long road trips I took back to my
boarding school, on the red muddy sand filled roads, in the ancient Benin
Kingdom of Nigeria. I recall crying all through the journey from fears that I
was going to be locked up in the four walls of my school for another term. My
experience at PRESCO was anything but enjoyable. I disliked the fact that I was
going to be away from home for long period of time, especially having to deal
with not being able to eat my mum’s delicious meals.
I vividly remember one resumption day after a very jolly Christmas
holiday, filled with lots of delicious meals and family fun time together, I
tried out all the tricks in the books to avoid going back to school. It is
still very fresh on my mind, one time when I pretended to be sick and ran off
to my grandmother’s house, just to avoid going back to school. But my mum, who was always a step ahead of
me, continuously stood her ground. She would lovingly explain to me the
benefits of remaining in the boarding school, which I never understood at that
time. Eventually we embanked on the journey to school. Upon arrival, while I
was checking in and getting ready for my mum to leave, I heard a voice from
behind me say, ‘’Hello, my name is Tola. I am in JSS1B’’. I turned round and
saw a slim, dark skinned girl, about the same height as me. She looked as
scared as I was. Her eyes already blood
red from crying for the same reason I was: her mum was standing nearby, getting
ready to get into her car and leave. My
name is AK, I am in JSS1 C, I replied. After this encounter, we never said another
word to each other, but it was like we could read each others minds, like we
both wanted the same thing, - to go home with our mothers.
Myself and Tola, never got to talk to each other after that incident,
until the 19th of February 2000, there was a gathering of kids at
the back of the dinning hall, all giggling about something, when I pushed my
way through the crowd, I found her in the middle. She was on the floor, playing
with a pack of cards, she did some interesting tricks that intrigued me, and as
we all watched in amazement, she turned to me and said ‘’do you want to
try’’? I tried to copy her technique by
doing exactly what I watched her do, but the cards all fell, scattering all
over the place, the others laughed, Tola laughed and I laughed. Two hours later Tola and I became close friends,
that afternoon, we walked to our hostel together, and back to the dinning hall
together for our dinner. The next day, there was no card trick during lunch,
but Tola was there with new ideas, she taught me and the other girls how to
fold paper airplanes. While we were playing with our paper airplane, I throw
mine really high in the air, and it landed straight at a senior student. Who did this? She yelled angrily, just as I
was about to turn round to own up to what I knew I would get in big trouble
for, I heard a voice behind me saying ‘‘I did’’, Senior Sandra, and it was a
mistake. Tola got the punishment of her life that day, she did it for me! And
to make matters worse, Sandra was my school mother, who was supposed to be
looking out for me, and probably my best friend, but that was not the case for
me. She punished Tola severely, for such little mistake that I made, and even
as I tried to plead with her, thinking she would listen to me, she added me to
the punishment. This day was the start of a new relationship, Tola and I looked
out for each other, cried with each other, stood by each other and served
punishment for each other.
By the time we were promoted to JSS2, Tola and I had become sisters, our
parents came to visit us at the same time, got us matching items, our
relationship grow from school to home to the whole family, there was no time we
were not together.
*
Getting to the end of my third year at PRESCO, I was already accustomed
to the typical boarder’s lifestyle. I had gotten into the routine of a typical
boarder; wakeup even before the morning bell which would go off at 4.30am every
weekday morning, rush into the bathroom to quickly take a bath with water as
cold as ice fetched overnight and stored in a bucket under my bed. Then do my
assigned chores as quickly as I could and then run to the classroom to await
the breakfast bell. The race through every activity was to ensure no senior
student would wake up to meet me in the hostel, as that would lead to unending
chores and most likely end up with me missing breakfast.
On days, when I woke up to meet my bucket of water had been “tapped” as
we called it, which meant stolen, I would have to look for a friend to share a
bucket of water with. Tola later taught me how to get a full bucket by taking
cups of water from every bucket in the hostel to fill my bucket.
Forever indelibly marked in my memory was the day I almost got suspended
from school. We had a teacher Mr. Obo, who took us the subject “Edo”, it was
the local dialect for the state in which my school was sited and a must learn
for every student. Mr. Obo was an old man, my classmates estimated his age to
be late 70’s then, looking back now, I think he might just have aged faster due
to poverty.
Mr. Obo was renowned for his body and mouth odor as well as dirty
clothes and bad shoes. He was also a very wicked teacher who was fond of caning
us on our buttocks for any offence at all and quick to spew insults at students
and their parents.
On that fateful day, I was unfortunate to get to class late after break
and met Mr. Obo in class already teaching. I tried to sneak in through the back
door, but he spotted me and asked me to proceed to the front of the class and
kneel down. I did that and after about 20mins, he released me to my seat, when
I got there, I quickly drew a caricature of Mr. Obo in the back of my book,
giving him big eyes and mouth, with horns and a tail and passed the book to a
classmate to give to Tola. The gods must have been against me because at that
moment, our principal passed by the window and saw my caricature of Mr. Obo and
all hell broke loose.
I spent the next 4 hours kneeling in front of the principal’s office and
appealing to anyone who walked pass to help me beg her. She had declared me
rude and an embarrassment to the values the school held and had promised to
punish me with 2 weeks suspension. I knew my elder brother would kill me. I
cried and wailed, even rolled on the ground and she finally relented, but not
until my entire class went to kneel before Mr Obo apologizing on my behalf and
Mr Obo then came to plead for me.
The next day, our principal called me out during the morning assembly to
apologize to Mr. Obo in front of the entire staff and student population of the
school, which I did happily. Anything was better than suspension. After my
apology, she started her speech. She reminded us of our schools code of
conduct, of how we are supposed to be prim and proper, how we are children
growing in grace and not disgrace. She went further to remind us that we where
in a Christian catholic school, and any nonsense will not be tolerated. She tagged my set as the most notorious set,
and said she does not see anyone of us growing to become reverend sisters as we
all behaved terribly and encouraged terrible behaviors from each other.
All my memories of this third year revolved around that day and that
near miss suspension that never left my mind. I felt horrible with myself and
my other mates for being the worse set PRESCO ever had, and this made me
promise that we would instead produce the best results that PRESCO ever had
from the forth coming national exams. This I thought would change the minds of
our Principal, and make her see that we are not all useless. The next set of days were spent in a frenzy
of meetings. We planned and strategize on the way to make our school proud, we
would all go to our favorite spot on campus and exchange ideas and information.
We organized study groups, carried the struggling students along, and arranged
for extra lessons with our teachers. We worked extra hard to achieve our aim of
obtaining the best results. By the time
the exams came, it was all a breeze, we had over prepared for every one of our
papers. We all seemed to come out from
the exam hall after each exam with the same testimony in our mouths.
After the exams, we were allowed to
go home for an extra long summer holiday (4 whole months). One day, opening the
morning paper, I saw the national exams results were published and my school
crest was in print. I knew instantly that we had made my school and the state
proud. Unlike the other sets that made the best results in the school’s
history, we did not only make the best result in the school, but we also made
the best in the state, out of thirty-six states in Nigeria. I tore out the page
and for years I kept it with me, taking it where ever I went, and showing
anyone that cared to listen, that you can make the best out of any situation.
As for Mr. Obo,
he never changed, but we became friends after that incident. A weird kind of
friendship, where I would bring him small gifts after holidays and he in turn
would be quite lenient when listening to my dismal attempts at communication in
Edo during classes.
All through my adult life, I found
myself being extremely independent and tough, even more so than my other older
siblings. I used to think for days, to try and figure out how I became like
that, because from what I recalled of my younger self, before the boarding
school adventure, I was the baby of the family, I got all the attention I
needed and was totally dependent on my mum and siblings for virtually
everything, even thing children in my age group could do on their own. Finally,
I had a clue; I knew where I learnt this from, I could now relate my independent,
time keeping, no-nonsense, strong attitude to my boarding school experiences. I
am often described as a ‘’strong independent lady’’. How could I not have been
a transformed lady, after spending six years of my life in that transformation
center. There was hardly any child that went through the whole six years and
came out the same way. Presently I am different, maybe too transformed to a
fault. I find it difficult to do the extra fun things my mates do. I see going
to night clubs or bars as a burden. I like my own company, but I can also
easily mix up with like minded people. I am the true definition of ‘’ladies are
seen not heard’. And as I advance in age, I grow a deeper understanding of the
lady I have become and how I can relate it to each and every year I spent at
PRESCO.
