IRAWO: My Quest for Freedom 5

Adventures at Lagos State model College

These adventures were more of breaking the school’s rules and regulations but to us at that time, they were adventures. 

Room 2: JSS 2 Room

Our temporary site was located at Government College, Ketu-Epe, Lagos. Our teachers had given us beautiful stories of our permanent site; how beautiful it looked.

Sometimes, after lunch in the dining hall, some students’ names were called out and put into a bus on a journey to our permanent site. If your name was called, you were considered lucky. My name was never called maybe because I was considered troublesome. I did not care. Shebi we will all eventually move down there when I am in JSS 2.

First term JSS 2 still found us in the temporary site. Our school was not yet complete. We moved down to our temporary site in second term JSS 2, 1990.

Juniors complained that seniors were bullying them so we were all put in rooms according to our classes. Come and see noise in the hostel!

Room 2 (JSS 2) girls were always punished. We were either drumming, dancing, singing or fighting. I nor sabi fight, so you will not catch me in that drama. Once I say my mind or air my views about an opinion, I pick race!

 

When it comes to dancing, singing and of course drumming, there shall you always find me. I would drum on the wardrobe doors and sing and my roommates would dance. Room 2A was always bubbling. Room 2B girls would come to our room to catch the fun. 

During a particular term, 2^nd or 3^rd term I cannot remember now, I put together some choreography dance steps and taught my roommates. 

We practiced it on several occasions, got punished for making noise, but I made sure they got the steps right. Afterwards, we decided to choose who was going to meet someone, to meet someone, to meet the female social prefect who would then meet the male social prefect. Luckily, Olamide Moore’s elder sister, senior Kofo Moore, was a prefect. The journey was looking easier to finish.

To further cut the connection train short, I simply informed my school father, senior Bolaji Obuze. My mates wondered what I was doing with a ‘wicked’ senior. Getting closer to him, he was kind. He would have my back when another wicked senior wanted to punish me. That happened many times and I got away, free.

And so we did not just have a room two girls dance, I got to choreograph the other room 2 girls and we had a fashion parade and performed other activities. I simply told the male social prefect that we wanted to own the night, with only JSS 2 girls performing. And that was it!

I was the drummer for the night. And I introduced my classmates to the stage. It was wonderful doing all that. It was a beautiful night!

There were other performances I got involved with; dance drama, Yoruba cultural dance and choral recitals.

Once, I was sent away from choral recitals rehearsals by Mr. Akinuli, the introductory technology and technical drawing teacher. What did I do? I was asking a junior to help me buy gala during rehearsals at break time, in the dining hall and he sent me away. I was very sad.

Later my friends said that he was asking for someone that used to sing the tenor part, which was missing in the songs. They told him I was the one he sent away. He told them to go and call me back and I was happy. 

We were on television; NTA 10 and LTV 8, a couple of times singing folk songs. We also performed at school events, etc. We even composed the school anthem that is still being sung in Lagos State Model College, Badore till today.

Gutter Palavar

Sometimes, there was water scarcity like I said before. I always searched for water and got it but on this day, I wanted to please a friend. Her name is Bisola Rufai. We had just settled a quarrel between us.  She wore my wristwatch and misplaced it and I was furious with her. So, we were not on speaking terms.She is my friend and so we made up. We remain very good friends till today.

I was going back to the hostel when she asked me to stay behind so we could gist with some of our classmates. Time ran out and I was not able to go get water for the next day. So, we gisted. 

Before the bell for night prep over was rung, we stole away from the classroom block to the hostel. We were going on a mission; to tap water, as we called it back then. 

The night was so dark. We did not have a torch light. We could not see. We were guessing were the gutter was and contemplating whether to go back to the classroom until we both fell into the gutter! 

I plunged in first. It was a serious fall and I still have the scars on my right knee. She said we should go back. I said no! After falling this much, I had to complete my mission. I had to get water from buckets in the rooms. This was my first and last time of tapping water. 

Some of our classmates asked us what caused our injury. We dared not say! After this incident, I always searched and got water even if it meant that I had to go into the nearby village.

There were many other escapades that I cannot remember now. There were also stories of ghosts, ogbanjes, witches, bushbabies- shouting, “Give me my mat!”especially in our temporary site, Government College, Ketu-Epe. If you were pressed in the middle of the night and you were brave enough to shout out, “Who wants to weewee?” About ten people who were about to bed wet would reply, “Me! me! And you would be accompanied to the toilet.

I made sure that I eased myself completely before going to bed but I still got a pangolo, an old bournvita tin beside my bed. If I had to weewee, all I had to do was weewee in the pangolo. In the morning, I would throw it away and get another one ready for another night. I cannot come and die!

Our permanent site was less scary. It was a fresh environment. I could just weewee in the gutter in front of my room, if I had to do so in the middle of the night. It was my morning piece of work. I was justified. I would wash it in the morning before going for classes. 

Major new that it should never rear its head in the middle of the night, else I had to go to the toilet.

I was not allowed to go out at home. To my mother, every boy I talked to was my boyfriend. I preferred to stay back in school for midterms, Easter and Muslim holidays. I would read novels, lots and lots of it. I was in a world of my own and I would connect to the world of the books that I read.

I was not a romantic type. I read a few Mills and Boon and got bored. The award for Mills and Boon reader would have gone to Obianuju Diru and senior Bukola Ogunsanya. For me, Mills and Boon stories usually began and ended the same way; meet a guy, play hard to get, fall in love, kiss and smooch and the story probably ends in a marriage. 

I prefered adventure, crime and suspense romance. So, I enjoyed reading books from authors like James Hadley Chase, Sidney Sheldon and later, John Grisham and publishers like Pacesetters and books like Malory Towers, St. Clare’s, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven by

Enid Blyton, classics by Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, James Baldwin and books written by lots of African writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, etc

 

 

I read fiction, non-fiction, essays, newspapers, etc. I enjoyed going to the library when there was no teacher in class or during break time. After reading my notes and textbooks, I would borrow novels and return them when I was through with them. 

I am still a voracious reader. I also love to research and share my knowledge. These days, children are distracted from reading. May God help us.

School adventures continue in my next blog.

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Cheers!