Chris Ihidero Unedited: Have You Seen My Childhood? [Part 2]

By Chris Ihidero

All the rejects from notorious Lagos schools like Baptist Academy, Igbobi College and St Gregory’s in the 80s somehow found their way to my school’s Continuing Education programme, which allowed them to retake the final secondary school exams they had failed in their previous schools. They were largely glorified touts and spoilt brats and were a few steps ahead of the most senior of our secondary school seniors. By age 8, thanks to them, I knew what Indian hemp looked like. While we came to school with provisions, they came with Indian hemp stored in Lukozade bottles and smoked freely after lights out. I can perceive the smell of Indian hemp from a mile off today.

The dining hall and feeding arrangement in my school was ‘ingenious’. Ten students, irrespective of age or class, were lumped together to form one ‘table’. Food was served in two large aluminium containers per table and the sharing is left to the students. If the most senior (or most powerful, for seniority was determined by your fists, not your class in my school) student was in a magnanimous mood he would share the food into 10 places and let everyone have an almost fair share. Otherwise, he could reserve 9 portions for himself and share 1 portion into nine places for the remaining 9 student on the table. You were left with 2 options: eat the little given to you and go back to your hostel and weep; or go outside the hall with a few friends, gather some sand in your plate, come back to the table and poor the sand in the senior’s share and wait for the beating of your life. You will be in pain for days; a swollen eye is a given and a missing tooth a possibility but you will gain the respect of your peers and a few seniors who will think twice before messing with you. I often chose option 2 and my body bares the marks even today.

We had a unique game in my school. It doesn’t have a name in English. Actually, it doesn’t have a name in any language. We would simply gather sand into a mound and carefully insert a broomstick at the top. Each person then gates the biggest cane he can find. One after another, in the most careful of manners, we would then start taking away the sand in small bits. The last person to touch the sand before the broomstick falls is simultaneously beaten by all the players till he either escapes, collapses or is saved by a passing senior. We loved that game. It was really funny, except you are the one receiving the beating, of course.

My relationship with Busola hadn’t grown physically, beyond holding hands and such, although we had danced to Sunny Ade’s ‘My Dear’ at the basement of the palace of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona. One of his sons, who was my classmate in Primary 6, was celebrating his birthday and we had all been invited. Busola and I had been quarrelling over something insignificant and the dance was an opportunity to reconcile. I held her waist and drew her close as we swayed to the rhythm of Sunny Ade’s beat and sonorous voice.  Her body responded, shifting from side to side, her head on my shoulder; her pubescent breasts on my miniature chest. It was all very erm…stiffy. We were both 10 years old, in Primary 6.

I cheated on Busola a few times over the course of our relationship, especially with Miss Christie, my Primary 5 class teacher. I have already told that story here. I also had brief affairs with Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Whitney Houston. They were both going to wait for me to grow up so we could get married, without getting older themselves. But that Whitney was impatient and the rest is history. Some women and their poor choices!

By the time I got to secondary school (my school had a secondary school but it had been taken over by the government) I had grown past infantile relationships like the one with Busola. Sola, our P.E teacher’s daughter became my new girlfriend in JSS 2. Sola couldn’t speak English. She grew up in Ijebu-ode and speaking English wasn’t a priority. Her mother ran a buka where Sola helped out after school. Before I swaggered into her life, mechanics and taxi drivers had been her admirers. She couldn’t refuse a Lagos bobo, all 12 years old me. She must have been older, at least 14. Her body was a few years older than both of us.

On our first date I tried to kiss Sola. We had stayed behind in one of the discrete classrooms after school hours. She looked at me with irritation all over her face. Apparently, kissing wasn’t also a priority. She guided my hands to her full breasts, smiling broadly. I must have shown my inexperience by not going further for she soon took my hands to the zipper of her school uniform…soon after, I freed my first pair of boobs from imprisonment, in JSS 2, aged 12.

BOOM!

Have you seen my childhood?

N.B Sorry I didn’t get to the riot…we’ll start from their next week.