This is the story of an event that happened in a catholic school in Nigeria, events which I witnessed and was a part of, and which have never been resolved till date. Names have been changed, but the tale is true, and told as I remember it.
FRIDAY, June 12th 2010
2:30pm
The day it all started had begun like any other day. It was Friday, and to us students at St. George’s Catholic Secondary School, that meant laundry, a long afternoon of free time, and an equally long free night. There would be no prep time for studying today, and no labour. No sports was allowed too, but that was okay –there were many other things to do to pass the time if you had already done your laundry, like I had.
Being June, the school was currently in the third term of the school’s academic session. I was in S.S.2, the fifth level out of six, and was quite popular among both the staff and the students –I was a leader in multiple student religious groups, and had acted as the school’s infirmarian/health prefect for almost two years before being officially appointed, then had served as the assistant senior prefect for a term before being made the Labour prefect just this term. Not that this meant much really, but it was a boarding school, and hierarchy was everything.
That Friday, as usual, I’d started my free afternoon later than everyone else. Lunch had ended at 2:10pm, and I’d spent the next 20 minutes assisting the current infirmarian in administering drugs and tending to injuries according to the school nurse’s instructions and my limited experience, so when the infirmary was finally clear of patients and we cleared up, the rest of the school had already changed out of the uniform into more casual wears and had mostly begun their various activities. On my way back to my dormitory, I walked past students fetching water from the taps reservoir, students already washing on the school’s quite small open laundry ground, some still just organising buckets to use. I knew each face by name and class. St. George’s had a student population numbering just over 200. We all know each other.
My dormitory was located on the lower floor of the second dormitory block. Unsurprisingly, I was one of sixteen selected out of my classmates to be dormitory prefects. Dorms were usually made up of persons from all the classes, except our seniors in S.S.3. Mine was one of the biggest in the school, and therefore had the highest population, which meant even more responsibility. But I wasn’t thinking of all these. I had been the dorm prefect for a while –all these were normal. My mind was, at this point, on the current novel I was reading and the fact that the meagre Friday lunch of semovita and egusi soup had done nothing to appease my appetite.
I got the first indication that something was going on in the dorm. As I entered, I noticed a small group gathered between two of the bunks, spilling out into the dorm’s centre walkway. I knew the space. It was the ‘angle’ of one of my dorm members: tiny J.S.1 boy Shola, who the entire school called Sho-sho, and who currently held the reputation for being the dirtiest boy in the school and the J.S.1 boy most likely to get into any sort of trouble. I did a quick assessment of the situation –there was no indication of violence or bullying, or that Sho-sho was being persecuted for committing another crime. In fact, the group was made up of his fellow J.S.1 boys, including many from other dormitories and one other –a J.S.3 boy called Augustine who I was quite fond of for his interest and active participation in all things religious. They were engrossed in whatever was going on, and I slipped unnoticed into my angle, which I shared with my bunk-mate Franklin, a student in S.S.1, and waited for them to disperse.
They didn’t. I changed into my casual wears and they were still there. Made myself a meal of biscuits and milk, and they hadn’t budged. Finished my meal, washed the bowl and organised the inside of my locker, and they still hadn’t moved, murmuring excitedly among themselves. I glanced at my watch. It was already some minutes past 3pm, and from experience, I knew most of the J.S.1 boys in the group wouldn’t have even thought of organise buckets to use for their laundry, to talk less of actually doing it. And, as a prefect, making sure the students were clean was partly my responsibility. It was time to take action.
“Hey!” I called sharply. The entire group looked up and fell quiet, startled –they hadn’t realised I was there. “Whatever is going on there, it’s enough. All of you, get out and go and wash. Now!”
That was when I received the biggest shock so far. Instead of leaving, they all began to come towards my angle, led by Augustine, who had Sho-sho in tow. I stared at them in surprise. Had I misjudged the situation? Had Sho-sho done something again?
But the faces that crowded around my angle (they stayed outside –it was totally unpardonable to enter a senior’s angle without permission) were definitely not angry. They did all have the same look in their eyes, though. It took me a moment to recognise it –it was wonder, mixed with awe and excitement. What on earth was going on?
Augustine’s face shone the most. “Ogwara,” he said. That was me, of course. “Sorry for disobeying you, but trust me, you want to hear this.”
