“In the past, people were willing to help…”
One sunny morning, I walked towards the bus stop to catch a bus going towards the school library. There was an old woman sitting at the bus stop so I greeted her as I sat beside her. I often greet people I meet at the bus stop out of courtesy, but most times, they find it necessary to engage in more discussions probably because of my accent and secondly because people here don’t often greet strangers at the bus stop. As expected, she asked where I was from, I told her Nigeria and smiled. I turned towards the direction of the bus and waited patiently for the bus.
My bus-stop neighbor was intrigued by me and decided she could confide in me. So she went on to tell me she’d had issues finding someone to help clean her house. “Declutter” was the word she used but I imagined mounds of dirt and perhaps a pet or two drowned in the sea of waste. I imagined a doggie or a kittie lying-in-state waiting to be found by her owner. I maintained a polite smile as she continued to share her dilemma.
“In the past,” she declared, “people were willing to help. I could have gotten someone to clean an old woman’s house.” My now plastic smile, polite nonetheless, remained. I tried hard to avoid any bias or prejudice. That morning, my friend had sent me an image on WhatsApp. It was from a book where the author talked about language, rhetoric and how we’re conditioned by our preconceived notions which influence how we respond to people’s speech, especially what we would consider racist rhetoric. The author referred to Judith Buter’s assertion that “we suffer from the condition of being addressable” so we react to things in a prejudiced way.
So here I was, trying hard not to let my bias and knowledge of the past influence how I interpreted this old woman’s worries about the present. I continued to smile and advised her to call a cleaning company to see if they could help. I think I googled cleaning companies in my city and gave her a number which she called promptly. I was still waiting for my bus.
She called and explained her declutter situation. I could hear the voice at the other end of the line say they only did cleanings and the cheapest service was for 30 dollars/hour. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that amount as the cleaning would most likely transcend 1 hour. So she told them she could afford 30 dollars for the day’s cleaning service. She was an old woman and would be glad if they could help. Unfortunately, the cleaning company couldn’t help but they advised her to reach out to cheaper companies. She ended the call and caught my polite smile.
My bus was in sight.
Again, she reminded me of how it was hard to find someone to help clean houses these days. In the past, it wasn’t. Then finally, she said what she most likely had wanted to say when I greeted her that morning, “do you know anyone who does home cleaning? Someone who could help me declutter my room? I would pay them 30 dollars for the day.” Her face reflected my cemented smile. The bus was closer now and I responded with a waning smile “I’m sorry I don’t know anyone. I have to catch my bus now.” “Good bye!” she said. She was a nice old woman. I couldn’t help wondering why she thought I would know someone who does cleaning services outside of registered companies in Gainesville. I shook off my bias and thought, I hope she finds someone to help her declutter. Unfortunately, we can’t return to the past where people would have done it for free.
“We don’t have anything grilled or fried.”
Place: Somewhere in Downtown Columbus, Ohio
What is implicit bias?
First intervention
Wait, what?!
You are at a conference. It’s lunch break, so you step out with your friend to search for restaurants. As you browse through Downtown, Columbus, you spot a food court and step in. Luckily, there’s a big sign in front of one of the restaurants. You note that this is a good marketing strategy. You don’t need to step into the restaurant before making your order. As you check out the menu with your friend, a man steps out of the restaurant and in a cheeky voice, well, more like a matter-of-fact voice, declares, “we don’t have anything grilled or fried. We’re out of those.”
You look at your friend as a bemused countenance spreads over your face. You note his confused meme face as you walk out of the food court altogether. You realize that you have lost your appetite. You cannot understand why the man assumed you wanted to buy HIS food. Second, you cannot reconcile why looking at a menu list outside a restaurant meant that you wanted something grilled or fried. Then, you look at your reflection as you walk past a glass building. You look up at your friend. You are both black. The cheeky-matter-of-fact voiced man is white. All black people love fried chicken or anything grilled. You solve the mystery.
Second intervention
Time: Evening of the same day
My conscience? A foster child?
It is evening. The conference is over for the day. You walk with a group of friends to a nearby pizzeria. You order for an XXL pizza for the group and you all sit by the window, watching the beautiful scenes of Columbus. As you stare out the window, appreciating the city’s beauty, you notice a Black girl lingering by the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Your eyes shift to a white family, a man, a woman, a teenage girl and a young boy.
The pedestrian light turns on. They cross the street, the Black girl following behind. Mid-way, the white man grabs the Black girl’s hand and as they arrive your side of the street, drops her hand. As they walk towards your line of vision, heading towards the pizzeria’s entrance, you notice the Black girl’s hair. Somehow, you notice these things these days. You’ve been listening to Emma Dabiri’s Don’t Touch my Hair. Somehow, that reminded you to look at another Black person’s hair. Her hair is matted. The hair is in locs. The color of her hair is an interplay of light brown and black. You know her hair is locked but it hasn’t been made by a hair stylist.
They’re in the pizzeria now. Your eyes follow them. You watch as they sit on a table not far from you. You watch as the young boy puts his hands on the table, the Black girl does the same. The white mum asks her to remove her hand from the table. It is bad manners, she says. The young boy’s hand stays. You feel uncomfortable with the whole arrangement and the family. You share your thoughts with your friends. One of them reminds you of the Black baby sitter who was arrested at a restaurant. He was baby sitting white children so a good Samaritan called the cops on him.
You want to call the police about this particular family, after all, “If you see something, say something”. But you wonder if they’ll believe you…Your order is ready. As you walk out of the pizzeria, you catch the shifty eyes of the woman. She sees you watching her. You maintain your gaze and as your conscience tugs at your heart, you hope the knowing look in your eyes will change their attitude towards the Black girl. You wonder if the Black girl is a foster child. She was obviously not part of that family. As you leave the vicinity, all you remember is her hair. It told you she was malnourished and not well taken care of. It told you she was not loved.
Her hair told you her story.
Thinking
Bonne Année
It’s 2019! Obviously, I know. But, I am super excited about this year. My excitement came after reading a tweet by Nathaniel Bassey where he said some people need to work on building on things rather than creating new projects. This resonated so much with me ’cause I know I had abandoned my blog and had not posted any story in 2018. I had done more of reviews and Bassey’s post reminded me of my lost love.
So, here I am again. My intention is to begin a series of stories around my Fulbright program in the US. Yes, I spent 9 months assisting with teaching Yoruba to students at Yale University. It was such a wonderful experience and an exposure to issues I had not had before. I began to understand what it meant to be a black person, from hair issues to racism, I learnt about my culture while outside Nigeria and got to understand the importance of some things I had taken for granted. At the end of the program, I realized that travelling and interacting with other cultures gives one a broader perspective about the world. I certainly cannot wait to visit other countries, especially African countries.
So, the stories would be snippets from my experiences. Sometimes, I could be the character, other times, I wouldn’t. Nonetheless, it would be such a pleasure engaging in this exercise of re-discovery. Cheers!
Awon-Ga: My Truth (Finale)
Episode 7
Finalement
Many people died during my service year in Shao. It was such a sickening occurrence that made my skin recoil in fear. There was a particular week where eight different people died. Usually, the announcement of such deaths happened at midnight since most of them died at midnight (I still cannot understand why). This particular week, the sudden shrills and cries were all too consistent and became uncomfortably familiar. It was either a “they have taken him from me!” or a “nooo!” that rent the still hot and semi-sleepless night glazed with buzzing mosquitoes. I groaned in my sleep so many times and waited patiently in the morning when I would listen to people discuss in their rooms (the walls were so thin), to ascertain who had died and what had killed them. I even experienced the traditional burial ceremony of a hunter. It was such a sight to behold and was a week-long. As the service year neared to an end, more people died, older people, this time and we crowned it up with the burial of my landlady’s father. There was so much food and sharing of gifts; for the first time, I had no inhibitions about eating food from a Shao indigene.
Finally, the end of the laborious service year came. It was time to wrap up. I packed my bags, my utensils and even remnants of my seasoning. I was not leaving anything behind. I had lost a great deal but still, I knew I had gained the friendship of a life time from my students and the service year itself. My room was sparse as usual, with the grim wall that bore so much burden and witness to many occurrences. I stared at the window and it willed that I wouldn’t cover it with the curtains no more even in excessive heat. I held the door and it almost eased itself away from my fragile hands. I was weak, I knew. Awon-Ga showed me that I was and I regretted stepping foot there.
In my heart, I knew that I had failed myself in many ways. After getting my certificate, weeks after my mates had, I remember standing at the state office and smiling grimly. It was not heartfelt and the reason for my sadness stood by me, happy that I had gotten the certificate. I appreciate that he stayed. He was obliged to anyway. But my moral self knew why and I detested him. I was a shadow of myself and I knew, that with this service, it would all end. The smiles, the promises, and the mistakes.
The night before, as I slept on my mattress, I thought about the whole year. I was happy that my students had gained a lot from my intellectual experience. I was glad that I could boldly say I had put my heart into the service. However, I was not excited about how I had lost myself and had become a shadow in this land. It was also a bittersweet experience; I realized this as me and my friend walked through Oja-Oba, buying, what I don’t even remember. We shared tears and consoled each other. Yes, we would keep in touch. Yes, we would make sure we were god-parents to each other’s children. Yes, we would see if something else could come out of our friendship, perhaps be parents to children we would bear together. Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t happen and this reality both saddened and excited me. I was tired of the toxicity I experienced with him. I had lost so much energy being friends with him. We argued a lot, he was jealous a lot and I cooked a lot. It was such an enervating enterprise, physically and emotionally, and I was glad to be escaping from my encounter with toxicity, especially toxic masculinity.
I have loaded my bags into the cab we’ve called. We are almost at Sobi barracks, remembering the good times, smiling and each other and finally, crying. As I reach my stop, sighting the bus that will take me to Lagos makes me sad. I am leaving my good friend with perhaps no hope of seeing him again. As we offload the vehicle of my luggage, I remember to push in his palm, my share of the fare. I was not about to leave without every iota of my integrity intact. Thank you for being a great service partner. But it’s time to part. We said our goodbyes.
***
Days, weeks and months later, we were in touch. Years even. But, time indeed is the test of true friendship. It would never have happened, those willful dreams and aspirations with him. I am glad they never did. It was a recipe for disaster and we were different people, with different futures. Three years later, I am no longer in touch with him and as I write this, my burdens are lifted.
My students still wish me happy new year and once again, I am glad I was at Awon-Ga. Thank you, Shao.
Photo by Monique Laats on Pexels.com
Awon-Ga; my Truth
Episode Six
Shadow.
In Shao, i was not myself. I had spent six months and could not recognise the pain-striken, sorrow-laden face that stared back at me. I was doing things i never thought i could. I had become inhumane on various levels and i had forgotten my first love-Christ.
It was not enough that i went to church, was part of the Corpers’ fellowship or gathered for prayer meetings on selected days. No. I felt empty and knew that the only way i could be whole again was by reconnecting with my God and going home; Lagos. Too many days i had spent devoid of secretive talk with God. In my mind, i ran to school trying to douse the cloud that made directions seem bleak.My students were my saving grace. At least, there was one thing i had set out to do before service and with every dilligence i could muster, i taught my friends.
Six months into service, i remembered my first quarrel in Shao. It was with a senior corper who was living in the room i shared with my host. They were to leave in two weeks when i returned. My host, Lara, had gone to stay with a batch C corper so the room would not be more congested than it already was.
Grace was her name. She was not graceful. She was the definition of a nagging woman who stood as a test to every generation of men. On firstencounter with her erratic self, i was taken aback and wondered at what extremes a human being could encompass. I am stubborn, i know. I am no saint. But Grace, she was relentless in taking charge of what wasn’t hers and in making sure i understood that seniors existed during service.My first taste was one evening.
That evening, Aminu arrived from Katsina and i went to help him with his luggage. I was making dinner for myself and Grace asked if i would not share some with the tired traveller. How was that my business? Well, i made some extra even though i felt no obligation to do so and packed some for him. I went to his room, gave him the food and he smiled his thanks; asking me tohelp myself to a bottle of Viju milk. In my mind i was like; ‘please, this is just me being nice. Don’t reciprocate this with that.’ I smiled a no and left the room.
I was using Lara’s stove to,cook then. So, i put the locust beans i had bought beside the stove to preserve it. Almost immediately, Grace saw this and in alarm, said iru wasn’t stored that way. Well well. Woman, if my grandmother wasn’t dead, i would have called her to show you how wrong you are. It was surprising that an Igbo girl would teach me how to preserve Ekiti locust beans. I gave her a benefit of doubt and stored it in a container with a lot of salt. The next morning, it was spilling maggots.
‘Grace, this is the method you prescribed. Check out how effective it is.’
‘Really? It must have spoilt already before putting it there. Hmmn. That’s what happens when you put it beside the stove.’
‘Are you serious? Instead of you to just accept that you advised me wrongly, look at what you are saying.’
‘Excuse you! Mschew, you have no right to talk to me that way. You need to understand that this room still belongs to Lara and you have to do it the way she has always done. Your spoilt locust beans is a result of your stubborness.’
At that point, her voice was at a crescendo while i tried whispering so that no one would hear me. But it was useless. I could hear Aminu’s shuffling feet coming towards my room. I could hear words telling me to be calm and I saw myself throwing my precious iru away. From that moment, i wasn’t myself. I kept a grudge against Grace and till the day she left, my heart was not at peace with her.
We had many fights afterwards; her telling me not to spread undies in the room. I had never spread my undies outside; especially not in Shao. I learnt to do that later. We went back and forth on her eating habits and her long beak that wanted to peck at every food i cooked. It was frustrating. The day she left, i heaved a sigh of relief and made plans to put the room in order.
The second person i had issues with was with Mama Amoke. Through the argument that mostly resonated on her part -as i locked my room so vultures seeking for gossip material wouldn’t see who she was referring to- i understood the meaning of being educated in attitude and the dangers of miscommunication. Mama Amoke thought i had called her an illiterate when i told her to let the person who studied electrical engineering tell us the solution to the incessant light problem that caused our floor not to have light while others had.
I didn’t greet her for a month until the landlady called me and said, ‘I know you are a Christian. I know you have been taught well. What do you want this muslim woman to say about our religion? Do what is right.’
That evening, i greeted Mama Amoke. It took her about 10 seconds to get out of the shock before she answered me.
When i had no one like Blessing and the landlady or my mother to caution me, i went on consistent malice-keeping sprees with Aminu. He was good, really good. He would keep malice with a person for days, sometimes weeks and felt triumphant when the other party called him. It was so despicable. Sometimes, i got bored especially during the holidays; tired of beading, reading and cooking and i would go into the room of my sworn enemy defying the consequences. He would look at me and smile with that silly tooth of his and say, ‘yes, can i help you?’ Or frown a fake frown while i looked for something that wasn’t missing. In the end, we would laugh the fight off after prolonged discussions and watch a movie or take a walk through Shao.
Six months in Shao and a new me had been born. A new me who kept malice, quarrelled and lived to see degrading things. Fights were no scarce commodity in Shao. Women married to the same man fought until their shame was exposed to the world. I always had a partner to share these moments with and relayed them in gist-form to absent Blessing. It was a recurrent tradition but i soon realised that death was also a cord that bound Shao together.
Awon-Ga; My Truth
Episode Five
Hi guys! I want to use this opportunity to appreciate everyone for their thoughts, comments and for following the series on my blog post; Awon-Ga; My Truth. I have taken time to explain my first impression of Awon-Ga High School in Shao. The following episodes would show my experience living in Shao. Enjoy!
The Definition of Boredom
I was back to the lodge provided by our school. My room was part of a three-storey building that seemed to be the centre of Shao; why, I could not fathom at that time. However, after spending some weeks in Shao, I came to the realisation that it was one of the few storey buildings in Shao. It remained a spectacle to many even though there was algae growing all over the cream-painted walls that had become brown. Little children from the community’s primary school came over to climb the winding stair-case located outside the landlord’s portion of the compound which faced ours menacingly. They often called it; ‘Ile oke’.
In the evenings, especially when everyone had returned from work, almost everyone in the compound gathered and sat downstairs to talk about the day, work and above all, gossip about whatever ‘subject’ happened to pass by and mistakenly greeted them in Shao dialect. After some time, i noticed that no matter how quiet, reserved and taciturn you were (emphasis on how calm you were), you would eventually drop into one of their conversations. The way you would know that would be by the repetition of “corper” pronounced in a strange way as ‘Koh-Pa’, in any of their conversations.
During this time, which usually spanned several hours, they would sit down, talk and talk. From snippets of their conversation, you could know the latest developments in the town, who got married to who, who ran away with whom, whose child ran away from the town because he did not want to be a victim of the witches who had recently been eating children for dinner, etc. It was commonplace and those evenings were productive, to me who listened in the dark comfort of my room and waited patiently till they all retired, for me to cook dinner; whenever they retired. (Lara would relate to eyes that prey when one has to cook an evening meal.)
My life in Shao, during the first few weeks was quite scheduled. From school, after our thirty-minutes walk to and thirty-minutes from, my partner and I would branch by Mei Kisi (fish seller) and buy something to snack on till we got home. After clean-up, I would proceed to eat whatever was left from the morning and bead OR sleep OR gist with my partner on the veranda till it was evening, when I would enter my room and wait for the conglomerate to disperse before I went out to cook. I got tired of this at some point and endured the heat that came with cooking in my room. I had to get perfumes to douse the smell of the smoke but, it was all good.
Our principal told us in his usual half-talking half-rapping code-mixing and code-switching way that the holidays would begin as soon as exams were over. ‘No end-of-the-year party Sir?’ I asked quite surprised and disappointed in a semi-polite way. I could see my partner staring quizzically at me. I wished I had not asked the question.
His reply was surprising. He smiled. The first time I would see that. After the gesture, I wished he did not. He scrunched his nose in a peculiar way and smiled with all his teeth out. My expression must have been queer as his smile went quickly as it came.
‘Mosun o. Party KE! Except ehmm if we are ehinn going to ask our teachers to contribute. Hen en. Hehehe. Which is impossible hmmn. Impossibility, because who has been paid? hen? So, no party.’
Then, the holidays came. I remember when sometimes I shed tears as I stared at my laptop screen. I was tired of watching movies all day long. I was tired of seeing nothing but sharp light and characters of Game of Thrones series. I was exhausted from what had made me excited; days when I thought I knew what boredom was. A night came that opened my eyes to the infallible truth. As I sat in the night with Aminu and Tolu, fellow corps members, I shuddered when I realised that I had come to know what boredom was; my life was ticking away and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. As Aminu said, I had lost appetite for everything.
It was sad that serving my fatherland would never be as glorious as I had thought but I guess it spurred me to write. It was no great feat trying to change the psychological disposition of students who came to class just for show. During class one day, I asked them what they wanted to be in the future. Wahab said, ‘ Soldier Mummy!’ I rolled my eyes as i told him for the umpteenth time not to refer me as such. Next, Fawaz wanted to be an engineer and Taiwo proudly stood up and said, ‘Alfa! Mummy.’ I shook my head and turned to the board. Most of them came to fulfil all righteousness, as, at the end of the school year, during WAEC, answers to the exam questions would be written on the board for them. What was the system of education turning into? I asked myself after refusing to help students with their NECO exam and was rebuffed by some teachers. Even my partner felt I was unfair, he knew it was bad but I was unfair for what I did.
I remembered my grandmother. She was a teacher, quite diligent in the art. I wondered if that was what she stood for; ‘helping’ the inadequacies of the students and the system. Who would have known that in deed, the roots of our problems lie deep, beyond the high walls of the government house or the broken walls of kirikiri prison? It lay deep in rural schools and it had come to stay.
Every night we would sit outside, talking of various things and spanning different topics. We sometimes knew we had to stop talking, had to reflect on reality but we were wont not to be hit with the dawn of our reality. It was as though we were locked in a mystery, a maze of uncertainty that only talks of foolish, irrelevant subjects would repress.
Something new came up to excite us, like Aminu’s boiled egg and pepper formula but recently, he too sat in his room, not interested in the ‘sit-outside’ remedy that seemed to be waning in its soothing power. Some nights, we would stare into the night and wait for the sharp drizzles, then heavy rainfall to send us into our respective rooms. Even then, we could not wait for daybreak, for another day of repeated boredom.
Eating could be the best remedy at times. But when you are condemned to carbs in different forms and have to wake up several times in the night to pee, then food becomes boring too. The previous batch who were with us counted their days to freedom; theirs being perhaps a worse fate as they would not be paid for being jobless. They were heading to a different world that held mysteries and uncertainties. Aminu was almost always on the phone, speaking to loved ones in Katsina. Sometimes, I sat in my room listening to unintelligible conversations and realised that I was stuck here; in a place with no ATM within 10 kilometres or more. There was a lady who was quite vocal and one day, I heard as she mumbled among the conglomerate, something unfavourable about me locking myself indoors. Some of us recognise our reality and prefer to sink deeply into it.
The man who bent to poo
I saw a man who bent to poo
He bent on the sidewalk beside the main road.
He bent as the buses passed
He squeezed his face as the traffic loomed and eased a bit of the brewing discomfort in his belly.
A police van whizzed past
Its siren sounding in its wake
The man stood from where he bent
He stretched and yawned
And
Left the stench in the overgrown bush that lined the side-walk on the main road.
Awon-Ga; My Truth
Episode Four
A landscape of nothingness
I was esctatic at the prospect that lay befote me. We had been going for about five minutes now, in a car and i was unperturbed. Mama, our principal had said things would be fine, that the school was of a trekkable distance and situated far from the prying eyes of the townspeople in an enclosed area. 10 minutes later, we got to the school.
The site before me was an uncompleted senior arm with bare windows that welcomed us with open arms and naked doors that looked on us in awe at the wake of our coming. Mr. Abdulrazaq ushered us in, Mama took a sit and before we could settle down, Baba, the vice principal for academics made us understand Mama was not a principal. She was only there as an acting principal.
I almost asked how that made any difference but i was grateful for her ambience and good gestures and how she smiled a smile that gave promises of better days ahead. My partner was still basking in the euphoria of a foreign graduate. I looked at him closely and wondered what would become of him few weeks into the scheme; psychologically.
‘See that place?’
We turned. We saw nothing.
‘There, behind the trees.’
There was a dilapidated structure of four open doors and a roof about to take flight. We nodded our assents and waited for Mama to swallow the pap in her mouth and bite off a morsel of moi moi which she had chanced to eat while we searched for what it was she had wanted us to see.
‘Hmmn. That was done by some corpers years ago. Pit latrine. Nice initiative. We hope you can do better.’
I smiled a quick smile and looked around the office. It was plastered with a few cracks scattered here and there and as i scanned the room, my eyes fell on a poster. It was in purple and white, typical VSO and the words flowed into me; through my eyes, i could see myself acting out those words;
‘People are not honoured by what they receive. Honour has always been for what they gave.’
That perhaps reiterated the mandate i had. It sparked in me a jolt that erased the prejudices i was already building up and made me focus on the primary reason i was at Awon-Ga; to give without hope of recompense.
After our registration and Mama’s entreating that i teach English and Literature-in-English to the three arms of senior secondary school (which i bluntly refused and settled down for the latter), we were driven home and readied ourselves for the next day. I was to teach Literature-in-English to SSS1 to SSS3. While the foreign graduate was to teach SSS2 Physics.
It was at Awon-Ga i met my Shao friends; Mustapha, Hamzat(who still calls me), Ridwan (who refused to take a picture because it was against his religious beliefs), Tawa(the only girl in Ss2 class who inspired the writing of this blog post), among a host of my sss1 students.
I was about to meet Shao through the eyes of my precious little friends who made me travel out of my comfort zone into the world of possibilities and mystery that marks rural life.
Awon-Ga; My Truth
Episode three
Obinna,super man
Let me escape the fluttering images of the rural and pristine nature i hoped to encounter. Let me remove prejudices that come with getting to an unfamiliar place and focus on the people i met before marching briskly towards the principal and following her lead to her car which would drive us to our Place of Primary Assignment (PPA).
I met Blessing while on camp at one of the VSO trainings on teaching, adapting to the rural life and general orientation. It was a chance meeting, nothing special until we met at a family house and a bond was brewing. Next, i met Ayo. A young man i was drawn to because of his way with words,he was never verbose, always concise and always hitting the nail on the head. I met mallam Zurmi, a young man who loved to hear himself talk and ironically made a lot of sense if carefully listened to. I met Akeem, a graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University who studied Guidance and Counselling. He reminded me a lot of my friend Tola who was very proud of his course and always ready to ‘display’. Akeem eventually got married to a lady he met during service. The dividends of NYSC you would say. I met Obisesan Lekan, who happened to be my kinsman and who also served in my host community. I never met my school partner, Aminu.
After the weary night, we woke up to the smell of tea and fresh bread. The Deeper Life Family House where we stayed in had prepared a sumptuous meal of jollof rice and fish the night before. That morning, it was bread and tea. I was overwhelmed and really appreciated the gesture from strangers. After giving us advice, they helped us with our luggage to the road and got a cab for us. I think they paid our fare.
My first encounter with Ilorin was on a rainy day, there was not much to see or notice as i quickly jumped onto the bus headed towards Yikpata camp. This time, i took it all in. The streets were very much like Lagos. I had always thought Ilorin was a symbol of Kwara but a visit to Yikapata, Edu LGA faulted my prejudice.
That morning, as scheduled, we reported to the ministry of Education. We were introduced and it was time for principals of the host schools to pick their corpers. Awon-Ga High School was mentioned. I stood up, the principal did too and contrary to what
had been said, i was the only corper at Awon-Ga. The moderator looked at the list with him and mentioned the name of my partner, a guy.
Argh! An Hausa for
that matter. Even though Abubakar had abated my fears and reservations about them, i had not hoped for it to happen that way. I smiled my widest smile and followed our principal who was already on her way.
She was really interested in the young man who had finished from Malaysia. Our duties there were sparsely mentioned and it was all about what Malaysia was like, wow, he finished with a first class, oh! he could help teach Physics and Maths since he studied Electrical Electronics etc.
It was a sting. At that point, i was jealous. I never knew it was a big deal to study abroad. That day, they made me understand the importance of studying abroad, why it was necessary and why, despite the fact that the alumni of such school was a skinny Hausa-Fulani, it was the greatest form of achievement. At that moment, i made up my mind, to focus my energies on the students that i had not met.
We got to the house rented for corpers and were left in care of a senior VSO corps member, Lara. After documentation, travelling down to Bode Saadu, a 2-hour journey which was dust-filled and replete with gigantic potholes and shaky yet heavy trailers wobbling carelessly on the ‘expressway’, we returned to the house.
I looked at the room. It felt small. On impulse, i went to ease myself. Th.e bathroom was frowning. In the night, after serving me a sumptuous meal of amala and ewedu, Lara went to sleep. My partner had returned to MCAN(Muslim Copers Association of Nigeria) family house. I lay down and shut my eyes tightly, trying to evade the reality i would live in for a whole year.
I shut my eyes to the door that could not be bolted and waited for dawn to come. Later that night, NEPA brought light. Lara called me goodluck charm because there had not been light for over three weeks.
I shut my eyes again and opened them the next morning. It was time for Lagos.
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Passing Through 