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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. (Damilola)



DAMILOLA

The Betrayed One ...by me

I betrayed her.

I didn’t plan to. It just happened. 

Well… sort of.
We were in Primary Five - which was graduating class back then – I took ill during preparations for end of the session party. By the time I returned to school, they had already taken the measurements for the graduation gown and there was no way it could have been made in time for the party the next day.

It would have been easy on the school if I hadn’t paid early for the gown but I had. So they had to find a way to fix things – I think they were really scared of my mum’s reaction or maybe my dad’s, it was hard to say they were both scary. Actually, they are still scary. I’ll tell you a little story.


 My dad runs a restaurant and during the period this story is set in, he had just started out and he wasn’t yet getting direct deliveries of drinks from the drinks companies. One day, he sent his driver to get drinks from his distributors with the restaurant’s bus. Unfortunately for the police men who were stationed on that road, they stopped my father’s driver who was returning with the drinks and after a bit of negotiation, got him to part with twenty Naira of my dad’s change.

Back at the restaurant, my father was in a rare accounting mood, and so he took his time to analyse the change and found twenty Naira missing. Back in those days, twenty Naira could get you a bottle of Coca-Cola. My dad’s went up in flames and when the driver explained how he had lost the money, he just jerked his hand and told the driver to take him to where the money had been taken from him. 

At the checkpoint, he asked for the policeman that had taken the money a nd then he raised a lot of dust and trouble that the D.P.O. (District Police Officer) had to be called. Needless to say, he got back his twenty naira. Although, he had wasted more than twenty naira worth of fuel, he gave the DPO, a thousand Naira. 

No matter what angle you look at the story from, my dad is scary: so is my mum.

Need I remind you of the event of the weight lifter or perhaps I should tell another story about her.

Sorry?

No!

Hang around and you might read another funny story about her.

So!

We were talking about Dami or Damilola.

Somehow the school authorities decided they had better find me something to wear for the party. They searched among my classmate’s gowns and found one that fit me also one that belonged to Damilola. That was what I wore. Now, I don’t know exactly how they convinced her or what made it okay for me to wear her gown, all I know is that she just got stuck wearing a white t-shirt over our school uniform with a pink ribbon around the waist.

It was relatively alright with me up till this point but then she started threatening me that she wanted the gown back after the ceremony. No problem right?

Wrong!

My mum just got a camera and she wanted to use it to take pictures of me at her salon in my graduation gown. So she ordered me not to take off the gown after the ceremony.
How to balance this?

No problem. I slipped away while she was talking with someone. Then I quietly hid near my mum till it was time to go. I took the pictures my mum wanted and that was it.

Or was it?

A few weeks later I saw her around my house and she demanded for it. I would have handed it over but it wasn’t with me. That became the pattern and for over a year she kept asking whenever she saw me and it was always one reason after another. Eventually she gave up asking and would just say hello to me.

Looking back I feel like a horrible person. She took the high road eventually while I was just acting like a spoiled brat. 

Lord, help me to always make a decision that would favor everyone and not just myself.

Dami, if you are reading this, I’m really sorry and I hope you can forgive me one day, although it seems you already did. As it turned out, I never used the gown more than once after that day. 

Can’t even say I know where it is now!

Imagine That!!!
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Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 16, 2015 at 7:55 AM

    Nice deep story. Really enjoyed reading it

    ReplyDelete
  2. Funmilayo Omowunmi FaladeApril 20, 2015 at 11:18 AM

    Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed it

    ReplyDelete

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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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