My first day at boarding school.

Boarding life at first…

After I was dropped off at the boarding school by my parents and my elder brother, life began to tell on a 10 year old boy who had never been away from his parents.

That evening, I spent my time welcoming my roommates because I resumed much earlier than they did, I ate the little food I was left with still wondering how my life was gonna be.

At sunset, the senior prefects called out every junior in the hostel for an announcement...life was not going to be the same anymore, I could tell.

They spoke about how we should protect our properties, always make sure the hostel was neat, when to wash our clothes, in general they were giving us an hindsight on how to cope, though not the full details (I’m laughing out loud just thinking about what was about to happen) cause we got to learn the rest from experience.

The next day was Sunday, I went to the mosque with my Muslim brothers right after breakfast at the dining hall, the Christians sorted their way also, each to their different places of worship in which the school had provision for.

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Mosque service was great though, lot of introductions to new faces.
Just so you know I fell into a dry gutter cause I wasn’t used to wearing my Muslim garment and I forgot to lift it up while crossing the gutter

In the evening we went for night prep, everyone was dressed in their house wears which was segregated by their colors, they looked so cool, prep was kinda awkward and it was also during that period I started missing my parents, the thought of not seeing them made me weep at times and I was already getting fed up of being locked up in a 6-year journey ride.

Well, all the registrations were stressful at first but as time went by we were eased into the schools system but as juniors we had to be introduced into what was called ‘Labour’. It was an unfortunate moment when we would be called to either cut grass, do some major proper cleaning in the school. They felt we had mastered the game(school life) a little and they began to stop pampering us. Of course, it was then the beatings started, at first I used to cry at any minor lashes but as time went by, I got used to it.

Image caption: Seniors still welcoming us with jokes.

My roommates and I began to get more closer, we began speaking about our experiences in primary school, cause it was a major story everyone could relate to…we began to start getting nick names such as “bunky”(which means the person you are sharing your bunk with), “sidee”(the person sleeping beside you) and so on, it was fun…

The classes were going on great, each teachers had their designated period they were allowed to teach and after each period they’d have to leave for the next teacher to proceed with his class.

It was a unity school, so the class contained both boys and girls, more of boys though.

We were equipped with good laboratories, projectors and all sort of new technologies we had only seen in movies, which made learning interesting.

My sit partner was a much of a cry baby than me, she wept much longer after I became a man and stopped crying about the absence of my parents😎, her name was Elizabeth I vividly remember.

When we came back from classes, we would have to go to the dining for lunch, and we would be allowed to the dormitory afterwards…the struggle of looking for buckets to use, waiting in line for water, washing the clothes and praying they don’t steal it was another tireless struggle.

We went to prep everyday apart from Saturday, it was meant for reading but I mostly sleep and we were punished for sleeping or making noise.

Lights out was at 10pm and we all had to make sure we had washed our clothes or set our stuffs down for the next day, after lights out everyone had to go straight to sleep, may the Lord be with you if you got caught walking about after lights out.

But still, it was all fun though, stay tuned.