Wednesday 24 April 2013

THE GOLDEN TEARS


                            
        CONTINUED

  …The screeching of tires is heard and the scream of a young boy. In a bid to manipulate his way out of the traffic jam, Monsuru without been careful enough almost knock down a young boy hawking oranges. At this happening, some people around give a loud shout, some others place their hands on their heads, while some are raining curses and abuses on Monsuru for been reckless and a few others are blaming the boy for not looking carefully before crossing the road. But to say the fact, this is a road that if you try to be too careful watching the vehicles for the time when the road will be free you will never cross because this is a road that will never be less busy.
      Just like we have in the movies, attention is focused on James who is lying down on the stretcher and whose fate cannot be predicted because the hope of getting to the hospital early cannot be said.
He takes a deep breath and tears roll down his cheeks as he gives a deep thought to what make him a victim of the ambulance.
*    *    *    *    *    *    *
James, the only son of Chief Desmond Daniels.
Chief Desmond Daniels is the sole owner of the multi billion naira company named DANIELS AND SONS GROUP OF COMPANIES. A business mogul, rich, influential, humble in disposition, God fearing and cheerful. He is happily married to Janet. He is a good manager of monogamous home with a good sense of humor, and loved by all.
Mrs. Janet Daniels is a very pretty woman, also a figure in the business world. She is a beautician and manages JANET HOME OF BEAUTY. Her rich beauty shop is a place where virtually every woman and lady who knows the value of beauty visits. She is doing really great in her business. As a wife, she is always supporting her husband to be the best and as a mother, she is playing the role of a good mother. She is also God fearing that she devotes three hours of each day for prayer and three days of then week to fasting. She is as well very active in church that she attends all church programs schedule for weekdays as well as Sunday service. It is because of this devotion that she was made a Deaconess in the church, a Sunday school teacher, bible study superintendent as well as the leader of the good women association of THE GREAT GOSPEL CHURCH.
James, being the only child is spoilt and pampered as he gets all he wants as far as he can ask for them. He attends the best primary school in the country i.e. GREEN PASTURES nursery and primary school.
All his life, he has never travelled through a public transport because there is always a standby driver who takes him every where he wants to go.
      After his primary school education, he made known his desire to study outside the country but his request was not granted because his dad wants him to study within the country. This left him with no option than to take the common entrance examination in secondary school within the country after which he was offered admission into federal government college, Badosa.
      When Chief Desmond handed the admission letter to James, he was so excited that his face was just covered with smile and laughter wishing that he was going to resume the same day he got the admission letter. That night, he found it difficult to sleep as he was just imagining himself resuming in his new school with his new uniform, friends and a new life as his dad had promised to send him there as a boarding student.
 Federal government college, Badosa, is a government owned school known for its high academic standard as the students always come out with outstanding results compared to other secondary schools within the country. A lot of parents believe that the students are very disciplined and the hostel facilities are just the best as advertised on the television.
 On the resumption date for freshmen and stalites, excitement and great joy fill the minds of the fresh men as they shine their teeth to the air in laughter and admiration to the school environment. So many parents came with their children. For stalites, they were not really happy as the thought of ‘God, we are back in this lions ‘den.’ Lions’ den indeed. This is because the picture most parents have of the school is different from what is really experienced by the students. This is a school where the difference between the school hostel and an abandoned building is the fact that people are living in the hostel.
The buildings are so bad that no one can imagine that it is human beings that living there. The windows are bad with no burglary proofs, the toilets are so bad when used, they leak. This has left students with no option than to resort to defecating either in the bathroom either in the bathroom or the toilet corridors. The bathrooms are so bad that when the people upstairs are having their bath, the water drains to the bathrooms downstairs, the electrical supply is so epileptic that within two months, they can be fortunate to enjoy the light for a week unfortunate to have it in just two days. By the time the light is made available; it will be so low that a candle light will be brighter than it.
Although taps were made available to the school in order to ensure that students enjoy adequate water supply, the taps are just there because for years, not a drop of water has come out of any of the taps. In order to console the students, wells were dug but the availability of water was seasonal as water was always available during the rainy season but scarce during the dry season. Is it the high level of criminality? that is ,theft of materials or the inhuman treatment the junior students undergo in the hands of their senior counterparts that would bring smiles to the face of  the stalites or the food which is not different from what criminals eat in prisons where the food is not well cooked, is it the thought of the teachers who would just come to school and sit under the shade drinking beer, jesting, talking and making love advances to female students as well as asking students to pay in order to get promoted to the next class? Or about the school principal who is not always around because of other businesses he is into? Why will the stalites laugh when they knows that if he falls sick, it is either he just lies down in the hostel and naturally feel well or go to the health centre where his sickness will get more complicated. Like an incidence that happened the last time before  they went home for the last break where a student fell sick and was taken to the health centre, after going through series of tests by the Doctor on duty, he was given an injection which was not for what was wrong with him. His life was cut short as he died prematurely. This incidence created fear in all the students and everyone either prefers to just lie down to naturally feel better or embark on self medication. Those and many other factors were responsible for the stalites non smiling faces.
 Chief Desmond, his wife, James and one of his cousins got into chief Desmond’s Lincoln Navigator, the boot filled with James’ school things, which included two boxes,2 buckets, a mattress, a pillow and many other school materials.
As they approach the school gate, James excitement rose to the peak. He was shining his teeth and staring at every building he saw within the school. As chief Desmond drove to where new students were asked go in order to get checked and cleared, James became very much excited as he saw a large number of other freshmen.
After staying for over two hours, James was finally checked and cleared. Since parents were not allowed to go to the residential area of the school, it was time for Chief Desmond his wife and James’ cousin to leave for home. It was now that the reality of the fact that he was not going to see his family again for the next two or three months dawned on him he then burst into tears, hugged his mum who had also started shedding tears. The dad hugged the two of them. As they were still together, an SS3 student named Richard walked up to them after introducing himself, he made his intention of becoming James’ ‘school father’ who would take care of him in the absence of his parents.
 ‘School fatherism’ is a system adopted by students especially secondary school senior students where they will act like the parents since the actual parents of the junior students in their care are not around. They prevent other seniors from bullying them as well as they provide for the needs of the junior ones in their own little ways.
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 Relief has taken over every ones face as after spending so many hours in the traffic jam, they have finally gotten out of the congested road.
The journey continues smoothly with Monsuru increasing the speed of the ambulance. Still in the world of thought, James is lying with his head facing up.
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 On getting to the hostel, he was directed to the room he was allocated to. As he entered the room, he felt irritated by how dirty the room was, the large number of occupants compare to the size of the room, to worsen the situation, was the fact that the metal bunk where James was allocated was very rust. Richard noticing the disgusting look on James face assured him that he would soon adapt to the system. Richard helped James to arrange some things he needs to know about students’ life in the school especially the way to comport himself when dealing with his seniors. While the both of them were still talking, an announcement was made by the room head on behalf of the house captain that a welcome party had been organized for the new students and kicks off by 8:00pm after dinner.
      Later that night at the dining hall, James and a few other new students could not eat the food. For James, it was because the food below the standard of what he  eats at home. The sight of the food made him nauseate. The hostel is a two-storey building where Jss 1 – 3 students occupy the ground floor while SS 1 – 3students occupy the topmost floor.
As early as 7:30pm, junior students were already sitting at the venue of the welcome party which was the back of the hostel.
      The venue was well decorated making the hostel more beautiful than it really is. Everyone was present including the house master- Dr. Diamond. Within a short while, the program kicked off. It was fun fair as it was a avenue for the freshmen to meet and inter-relate. For James, it was more than fun fair because he had never had such kind of experience before. To crown it up, there was enough to eat and drink.
 At exactly 2:30 am, the program came to an end. Most of the new students over fed themselves that some of them of them could not sleep while some one like James just layed on the bed taking a flash back into all the events that characterized his day.
  Just like some one stung by a scorpion, James suddenly jumped off from his bed and raced down to the toilet.
 To celeberate with the freshmen, the school management decided to repair one of the toilets in the junior block and locking up all others.
 As james got to the toilet, to his surprise, he met a long queue of other freshmen like him waiting patiently for the student in the toilet to come out so that the next person could go in. In a short while the person in the toilet finished and the next person went in. not long after the next person went in, a senior student rushed to the toilet from upstairs. As he got to the toilet, he boycotted the queue and rushed to the door of the toilet. This made the junior students grumble because there was no light in the toilet enough for them to know he was their senior.
      As he got to the door, he pulled it. Noticing it was locked from within, he banged on it violently and shouted at the top of his voice ‘who is the bastard in the toilet?’ The person in the toilet replied ‘I am not a bastard, may be you are’. The senior student angrier, raised his voice ‘you are mad. Listen, by the time, you come out of that toilet, consider yourself dead as I will flog life out of your body.’ The junior student then replied, ‘I shall not die but live. It is whoever wishes me dead that will be buried.’ This statement infuriated the senior the more and he said, ‘your father is a bastard and you are a dead son.’ Then the junior student said ‘my father is not a bastard because I know my grandpa and I  am not dead because if I am dead, you can’t stand and be talking to me now.’ This statement made the other junior students burst into laughter which hurts him the more and ordered the other junior students to lie down flat on the floor and promised to beat the hell out of them for laughing. It was then they all realized the fact that he is a senior student causing great fear in the hearts of the junior students as some of them ask for forgiveness. ‘And for you in the toilet’ he continued, ‘ you are a dead man. The best thing for you is to live in that toilet forever.’ As he said this, the junior student came out of the toilet and did to the senior what he never imagined would ever befall him through out his life on earth. The junior student actually defecated in a bowl. As the senior student raised his hand to give the junior student a hot slap, the the junior student poured the feaces on the senior student’s face which left the junior students laughing the more as they all run to their rooms leaving the senior in a disgusting state and self  hate.
                 

           … TO BE CONTINUED…

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