NO OPPORTUNITY TO SAY GOODBYE

After the interview, we returned the following January to begin Form One. Fortunately, Suntana and I were both in Grier House and we hit it off immediately. In fact, upon our arrival, when we discovered that we had been assigned to different rooms in the house, we immediately corrected the egregious accommodation arrangement and promptly moved him into the same room with me. We were soon acquainted with the new order by the senior whose bed we had commandeered, in a most understanding way of course (ilosh), of how our place would now be at the bottom of the food-chain in the hierarchy of the house grounds rules. Suntana was sent back to his assigned room. That was only the prelude to the baptism of fire that would follow. The first term that year was a rude shock for me, being my first experience of boarding house. There was severe water shortage that made it necessary to fetch clean water in buckets, from the big black tank near the dining hall or wherever else it could be found, for use on each of the different house grounds.
We, being the most junior boys then, bore the brunt of it.

An early rude awakening by a hand bell at 5.30 am for a 30 minute run, called road work notwithstanding, we then had to make a mad dash afterwards to get ahead of the queues to fetch water for the senior boys and ourselves. The toilet facilities were another nightmare altogether. I used to wish I could use “egbe” to be magically transported home, every time I needed to ease myself. Besides those infringements on our basic human-rights, insults were duly added to injury in the rights given to the senior boys to lord it over and punish any other boy in a junior class. This made class 1 boys, fodder for every bully in the school and errand boys at the beck and call of any senior boy. Sometimes the injustice was quite unbearable and I would introduce them to my alter-ego, “Oba Kala”, usually before being pummelled into submission, I woke up on several mornings crying to be sent back home.

However, when I returned to school for the second term new alliances had been formed, and ingenious tactics employed to outwit the common enemy. I remember how we would sneak off the house grounds after siesta, with our cutlery stuffed in our pockets so that we wouldn’t have to return until after dinner for prep, which seniors couldn’t prevent juniors from attending or even being late for, by sending us on errands.

Mannix (Imonikhe Ahimie) wound up in Field House. My skewed perception then was that, so did most people in 1B while 1C seemed to contain the Swanston and Carr House guys. Suntana, Korak (Rotimi Erinle), Tafi (Damola Ifaturoti), Alobi-Ete (Edobor Akiluyi Aloba (late)) and Kila (Olawale Kila [late]) were fellow Griersons also in 1A and as Abod (Wale Aboderin 1A) once noted astutely, 1A was renowned for its cacophony. In agreeing with that, I always saw 1B as the quiet “kori” guys while 1C were a bunch of “paki” who always had the strongest teams in every intra-class sports competition we held.

The great “fire” outbreak also happened that year and practically every class 1 student in both regions was infested. We burnt our scalps with constant washing with Izal, until the pestilence was eventually eradicated. The class of 1972 in Form One had a lot of colourful characters as did every year’s set and it was certainly a worthy accolade to have entered GCI in Class 1 in those days, for any other means of entry attracted the unenviable label of “ayoo”.

Class 2 came by quickly, lasting only two terms because of the change in the school calendar year in 1973. What stands out most for me was getting a ride home from school at the end of the second term with relatives who had come to visit me in school and getting home only to find out, a few days later, that I wouldn’t be returning to GCI in the following session without the opportunity to even say goodbye to any of my friends before I left.


Culled From: Our story (1972 Set Anniversary book)
Submitted By: ABIMBOLA ADEFOPE (SN 2412, Grier House)