At our morning assembly the principal told us that there had been a practice of the school alarm system during the night. He had blown his whistle and managed to gather together three teachers and about 700 students. Seeing as we had around 30 teachers and 1200 students it looks as if we teachers are lazier than the students. I didn’t hear a thing. The principal has now threatened us with another rehearsal. I don’t see how I can be expected to show up, being in the last house on the compound, when those living much closer to the whistle don’t get up either. Maybe they hear it but decide to roll over and go back to sleep.
I’ve been muttering under my breath that I have written 68 letters since arriving in Nigeria and only Mother has bothered to reply. I heard today that the post office is withholding our mail because the school hasn’t paid the rent for the mailbag. The joys of bureaucracy! We were told that our messenger could look into the bag but he couldn’t take anything. He announced that there were letters for me in the bag which made me frustrated.
Here’s a story I heard today about a mother of a primary school girl who went to see the principal.
Mother: Would you please expel my daughter from school as I must get her married before she is too old. She is a beautiful girl and there will be many men wanting to marry her.
Principal: No one loves your daughter more than I do. Allow me to marry her and I will expel her. If you refuse to let me marry her I will demote her to form four and keep her there forever and then no one will want to marry her.
She was expelled and in due course she married the principal. Ah, romance!
I was pleasantly surprised when I came home this afternoon; two students whom I have been tutoring in biology came in, in their words “to greet me”. I was quite touched. I was due to meet them in an hour’s time. They came in and we talked about life in school and I was able to learn from them about something that I’d been curious about. I had taken a photograph of dead corn stalks, high in a tree, but there was no one to tell me why they were there. Dauda told me that they were put there to keep insects and cattle away during the dry season so that they could be used to make fences at a later date. I am beginning to feel welcome here. Some of the teachers are knocking on my door and coming in for a chat so it’s making the school feel more like home. Because it’s a Muslim area I can’t have a lady visiting me and so my visitors are always men. The vice principal is a Christian from the south, so he’s free to visit me. There are also young men working at the school as teachers because they are part of a Nigerian national service which sends graduates from university into different areas to teach, help in hospitals etc. Mohammed Kankarofi, who lives across the path, is a single man so he often comes over. He’s always very elegantly dressed and holds himself proudly. He’s quite skinny with a goatee. His clothes are always immaculate and I often see him walking by with his head held high. Other male teachers are far more conservative, in an Islamic way, and some of them don’t even allow their wives to come out of their homes. It’s sad seeing one particular lady peeking out through her curtains to see what’s going on outside.
