A Boarder's Journal

Chapter 1

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

My new home stood before me, the Federal Government Academy, Suleja. Seeing the arched gate didn't ease my already proliferating anxiety. Thoughts upon thoughts.

You will survive, I told myself.

My father exchanged a couple of words with the security men at the gate but I was uninterested in their conversation. He drove  into the school going through a roundabout before settling for a space just in front of the admin block and turned off the engine. The trunk was flipped open from inside

My dad, mum, sister and I all alighted. Far behind us and adjacent the road we followed was a large lawn with people gathered.

Students, teachers and parents all busy with processing the new students. They were grouped into four, according to the houses; red, blue, yellow and green.

I went to the trunk to pick up my farm implements and luggage. My sister assisted me with part.

"Shall we?" my father said.

My sister giggled and mumbled something under her breath. Having also passed through a boarding school, she fed me some stories some days ago about the day to day life of a boarder just to terrify me. I tried hard not to think about any of them.

I scowled at her.

"Give him a little break Sadiya," my mum intervened. She smiled at me and said "Don't mind her, it will all be fine."

We walked to the lawn and joined the red house check-in queue. There were four people in front of me. I studied them quickly. They all looked frail, just like I did. One did not have to be a sorcerer to see this was our first time being away from home.

Twenty minutes later...

It was my turn. I approached the table with my belongings. The house master was standing right in front of me, flanked by two students in red checked shirts and brown trousers. They both looked young, although clearly older than I was. The one by the right was a bit tall and slim and a bit light skinned. The other was not as tall as the former guy but he was average and darker.

The house master was a middle aged man. He looked plump and dark, with his full beard hanging from his face. He was holding a couple of stapled papers that appeared to be a questionnaire. He picked his pen and was ready to start ticking. He surveyed the implements I had, checking to see if I had all the required ones. He ticked a couple of columns before asking me for other things.

"You're welcome," he smiled "What's your name?"

"Ahsraf..." I stuttered "Suleiman."

"Let me see your bed sheets, torch, covering cloth, bathroom slippers, checked shirts, games wear and uniforms," he asked.

I quickly unlocked my box and brought out the above mentioned items and placed them on the table for them to see. The house master nodded his head and ticked more columns.

He asked me for more items which I presented to him, feeling relieved in the process because I wouldn't be getting into any trouble. My parents made sure they got everything that was required by the brochure.

When the house master was done, he leaned back a little in his chair and faced right. The student by his right bent forward to speak with him. Unfortunately, I couldn't make out what was said. He returned to his previous sitting position and wrote down something on a piece of paper.

Room 3.

Pointing to the guy on his left, he said "John here will show you to your room." He turned to his left and pointed to a stack of mattresses and said "take one of those."

I walked to it and grabbed one mattress.

"Thank you sir," I said and packed my things aside.

My mum said "go ahead and see your room. We'll wait here."

My dad and sister nodded in agreement.

The darker skinned senior came to me and lessened my load. "Follow me," he said in a calm tone "leave the implements behind."

I looked at my them like it would be the last time and went ahead, trailing behind the senior slowly.

After we left the lawn where everyone was gathered, he looked at me and saw me all tensed up.

He smiled said "my name is John. You look all tensed up, try and loosen up. The place isn't that bad. "

So it is bad after all?  I thought

He continued "there are quite a number of rules here and I'll fill you in on them later. Fortunately for you, we happen to be in the same room.

I smiled, this guy isn't bad at all. If all my seniors were like this, I'm home and dry.

We walked past a long building and he mentioned it was an SS3 block. "Avoid this place by all means if you can" I recall him saying.

After walking for about five minutes, we were at the hostel gate. We saw a couple of shirtless seniors playing football on the sand to our right. I could also see a seemingly abandoned hostel straight down from the gate; it was coloured red.

"Lawn soccer," he smiled, looking at the guys playing football. "You'll get your turn when you get to ss3."

He started walking right towards blue house, passing the players on the sand.

Startled I asked, "why are we going to blue house?"

He chuckled "As you might have noticed, the red house looks dilapidated, so we've been moved to blue house. And because of the red and blue colour combination, it's called purple house."

So all of them are in ss3? They look terrifying. I couldn't help but marvel at the sight of them.

"So all these people are in SS3?" I asked.

"Yeah and try not to stare."

I focused on what laid ahead till we got to the hostel. We climbed the porch and entered the hostel and a moderately large courtyard stood in front of us. We were separated by a relatively narrow gutter. To the right were six rooms and to the left six rooms as well. He quickly explained to me that the the six rooms by the left belonged to red house and the six rooms on the right belonged to blue house. On the side opposite the entrance stood the laundry room and the toilets. We went left , to the third room. He unlocked the door and we carried the luggage in.

I scanned the room briefly. It wasn't very big but it was big enough. How many were we going to be here anyway. There were four double bunks, two in the inner corner and two in the outer corner. The inner and out corners were separated by four fixed lockers. I placed my mattress on one of the free spaces on the right upper bunk. John helped me keep my load under the bunk.

"You have to go meet your parents," he said.

We went out of the room. I saw a guy wearing only shorts holding a belt. He was looking down at another guy on the courtyard but on the floor. The guy on the floor was dressed on his "check and brown" but didn't look like 'us', so I guessed he must have been in SS2.

I couldn't help but look in amazement what I was seeing. What could he have done wrong.

John pushed me saying "you have to keep your eyes forward if you don't want any trouble."

Just as I was about to turn, the blood thirsty eyes of the SS3 guy met mine. I felt my whole body vibrate. He slowly pointed his finger at me.

He said "You! Come here."

I started walking slowly towards him thinking about an infinite number of things that could happen in the next few seconds.