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Civilian Casualty 3: The Thing About School Fees Part 1

THE FATHER THERE IS A GENERATION OF MEN in Nigeria, born two decades before Nigeria’s independence (1960) and during the period of independence, they subscribe to the belief that labor, builds character. It is a principle that they place above all else and they are not wrong, labor does in fact build character – at least some aspects of character. No amount of labor has thought these men to keep it in their pants, not even when it invites more labor and hardship for them.  However, I believe that something may have been lost in the translation or application of this principle by a good number of these men because somewhere along the line, the word labor was subconsciously substituted for masochism in their psyche until suffering came to equal labor in their minds. ( It explains for instance why these men consider eating three meals a day, living with your parents or attending school as the height of luxury). Tade was one of such men. Of the many snacks availa...
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Book 1: G.O.O.D (Chinyere)



CHINYERE

People take food, so, so, seriously!

It’s amazing that she’s the first friend/person I recall knowing.

Evil Snickers!!! 

Who’d have thought?

I personally believe we all got to know what cultism, peer pressure, gangs and other crappy childhood and not so childhood associations were, right about when we were aged 0.0000001hrs. 

FACT!

WHAT?!!!
Stop poking me.
You know I’m telling the truth. I try hard not to lie…
Okay. Maybe not so hard but I am practicing honesty, with this work and we all know I’m telling the truth as far as the fact I just stated is concerned.
Back then, even though we could not talk, we oppressed ourselves. Some of us got teddy bears, others dolls, even before we were born while some of us never even got the cold hard plastic statues popularly known ‘babee’ or the wooden dolls popularly known as ‘omo langidi’ (Basically meaning a frozen child) until we were six.
There is no point calling those things dolls. They had no hair; no pretty clothes and you couldn’t move any part of its anatomy without using a knife or fire. For the ‘babee’ you could just smash it with your foot to make its stomach region flat and so it would be a cruel, cruel joke to call it a doll!
If you ask me, it was aptly named. Now we can’t blame the parents who bought that for their kids it was what they could afford... Wait! I mean: ‘our parents who bought that for us’. Nervous smiles!!!
I wouldn’t want to get beat up by people who assume that I got a real doll even though I used to look at those hard plastic dolls with fascination wondering why my parents didn’t get one for me instead of the real... Um, let’s not finish that line.
Nervous Smiles!!!
Guys don’t even try to pretend you were left out of this kind of humiliation. Some of you and I do say this authoritatively, had to fight for a chance to play ‘roll the tyre’ or whatever other spherical object you could lay your hands on. Including tin covers!!! On the other hands the ‘Ajebos’ (Meaning, People who eat butter, who are born with a silver spoon and any other appellation used to describe people whose parents have some dough in the bank) already had a toy car waiting for them. Some of them had cars with drivers in Primary school, while some of you had to trudge on your feet to school.
What is my point?
Some people are born to be oppressors and this girl was one of them and it’s not because she had a teddy bear, I doubt she did. That was just her.
She WAS pretty though!!!
I mean, I wasn’t bad myself but it is quite possible she was more attractive than I was.
Okay! Fine! She was!
She had long dark beautiful hair which she threaded to school in all manner of style.
She had beautiful and clear and light skin,
She had pretty pink lips…
Okay. So maybe that came out weird but I believe you get the picture.
Anyways she’s the first friend I remember having, even though I don’t think she’s one of the best friends I ever had.
How does the bully of the class get to be my friend especially when you consider the fact that I was the sweetest kid in school? FACT!!! No need for snide side comments.
By the way: Hey I heard that bozo!
If you still don’t believe me, I tell you this: if I was scolded for longer than a minute in front of people, I would burst into tears.
Shut up! I’m not a cry baby.
Suddenly, everyone has an OPINION!!!
This is MY story and I’m ignoring you.
By the way I was in Primary One in Sol-fa Nursery and Primary School. I guess being her friend gave me some kind of leverage in the class.
Okay, fine, we’re still focusing on Chinyere, who I must say was really good at snatching people’s lunch or - if you prefer to get all technical on me - having everyone bring their food together for communal eating; it all means the same to me no matter how you put it because I never got to eat much out of my lunch. My plight probably had something to do with the fact that, I was a very slow eater.
Please, get off your high horses! Eating slow in that setting, does not make me an ‘Ode’ (Meaning fool)
If you will think about it and not get all judgey on me, being a slow eater meant that: I got to savour the flavour of whatever food I was eating. Unlike some of you gluttons who consumed food as if there was famine in the land.
I don’t see any point in swallowing your food without chewing it properly; beside gobbling your food very fast could endanger your life as I learnt over and over again whilst trying to compete with the others.
If you still do not understand what I am going on about, permit me to ask if you have ever choked on water. Don’t deny it because I know you most definitely have, especially if you are one of those who wolf down food.
Do you remember how that feels?
Point taken?
Good.  Back to my story...
I wasn’t entirely spineless back then, you know?
I once put my foot down and a lot of good that did me! I was left to eat my food alone and it wasn’t fun after all because I was cut out of the clique immediately, I remember a dark skinned girl who was not part of our clique coming to my rescue but the damage was done. No more friendship, it’s a good thing I left that school a few months later (not because of the fight though, it was something about my brother calling his teacher stupid) it would have been hard to remain there without Chinyere as my friend. She was that influential!!!
I do remember though, that one of the most important basis of our friendship - apart from eating together of course - was the fact that the two coolest guys in our school had the hots for us.
As unbelievable as it might sound stuff like that did happen in those days.  As for the boys, their names were Wallace and Chibuzor.
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