The Congruence III

I am also brilliant academically, although not as much as my eldest sister but I managed to pass my S.S.C.E.

Sister Grace swore that I would get a degree as long as she was alive and she got me my JAMB form, I made it up to her by studying really hard and it paid off.

My score was 253 and it was good enough to secure admission into the University of my choice and the course that I wanted to study…Banking and Finance. Our landlord’s daughter was a banker and I coveted her lifestyle every time she visited her father…I just wanted to be like her.

It was like sweeping the whole house to get me everything I needed to start school. My sister worked extra hard, my brothers chipped in…likewise my mum and they were able to put together the school fees. My sister sewed me some clothes for school and I was just excited to be inching closer to my ambition.

Everything was set except my “pocket money” but luckily, our landlord’s daughter came that weekend and when she heard I was going to school gave me two thousand naira…oh my God! It was like a million bucks. I couldn’t take everything; I had to leave one thousand Naira for my mum.

And off I went the following day, Sister Grace went with me and helped me settle in, she made sure we paid the school fees before she left…after my mum’s experience with pick pockets, we got used to wearing local waist pouch bags…Yoruba people call them “ìgbànú”.

“Better to pull your skirt up in public and show a little skin but still have your money” was my sister’s slogan. Even the teller at the Bank laughed when Sister Grace brought out my school fees from “under there”.

Sister Grace helped me to get settled in the hostel…I was already used to having a lot of people live in one room but this time they were not family. Some of them looked friendly and some looked mean.

When my sister finally left, I could not help but tear up…it was the first time I was on my own without my family around. She hugged me and promised to come back and check on me…she advised me to concentrate on what I came to school for and never to forget where I was coming from.

Deola was supposed to be my bunk-make. However, she got to school about a week after resumption. We were about 30 in the room (including squatters) and someone else had been sleeping on Deola’s bunk all the while but since I didn’t know who was who, I never bothered to ask any questions. Besides, nobody in the room cared enough to try to know me or talk to me.

You know those girls that wore T-shirts and tucked them into skirts back in school? That was me…little wonder my roommates didn’t care to mingle. I dressed like one of the Born Again people but it was not for religion.

I was not even the religious type…I actually struggled with the thought of a merciful or good God because I simply had never experienced that side of Him. Whenever I was in the hostel, I would gently crawl into my bunk and just be by myself…but that all changed the day Deola came

“What’s your name?” She asked

I wasn’t sure she was talking to me until she asked again. I looked up and she smiled at me. I told her my name and she talked to me for a while…it felt good. She was in my faculty but was a sophomore. I noticed she had a lot of stuff…a lot, a whole lot.

I didn’t have a lot of friends and I want to believe that low self-esteem had something to do with it. There were people in my class that didn’t even say hello to me. That changed a little after one of our test scores came out and I scored highest…I became known as one of the “efikkos” (nerds)
  
Every evening back in the hostel, Deola would ask how my day was…she would talk to me for a while and I could tell she kinda liked me because she didn’t do that to everyone in our room. The day I ran into her at the faculty building, I had assumed she would snub me…it was like the re-enactment of when the prince met the pauper but she actually gave me a hug and I could see that even her friends were taken aback. She introduced me to them and some were still reluctant to say hi.

Deola said she would see me in the hostel later, as she walked away with her friends. They looked like real life Barbie dolls, from their hairdos to their shoes…and it felt cool to have even been “recognized” by and with them, maybe that would help hype my reputation with some of my snobbish course mates, I thought to myself.

Sister Grace visited me about five weeks after resumption; she brought me some stuff. I was already running out of things but I had learnt and mastered the art of surviving on little. She stayed a while and we talked and talked…she told me that my brothers were also doing well and had sent me some money as well. I noticed she was holding a GSM phone (the technology had been around for some years but only one of the providers had service in our town. Their rates were crazy and very expensive, so we never bothered to get one in the family). Apparently, the phone was a gift from a guy that had been trying to date my sister but she had been too busy to give the guy a chance or even an audience and my being in school made her relax a little bit.

She gave me the number and it felt good to have a way to communicate with my family, especially my mum. Quite a number of students, especially the ones from the cities, had GSM phones too and there were call centers all over campus. I couldn’t wait to call my mum the following day…it was a Sunday.

I quickly went to take my bath before the bathrooms were messed up. When I got back, I noticed someone had tampered with my bag…I was only away for about 10 minutes

“Ye…I don gawk myself” (I have let down my guard) I screamed.

PART 2                                                                                                              PART 4

Picture Credit (c) Ynaija

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental   

© 2017 Lanre Olagbaju All Rights Reserved