MEMORIES FROM BAORDING SCHOOL DAYS: CONTRABAND

It's another memory from back in boarding school days

In those days Balogun, “Balo” sold fish in the hostel for N25 each after night prep and stray fowls were unspared being as manna bought from jand, outside school walls and brought through the jungle of justice; there were contraband of tin fish (Titus, Geisha) and indomie noodles among others in the hostel. They were sneaked pass the house master at check point in the beginning of term, hidden inside garri or another bag not displayed at the check point. Then, seniors were huge and brute with a surface impression of maturity and no-nonsenseness. Balo often jand and brought in merchandise of contraband experiences from town, from a place of escapade. He like a few others soaked indomie in cold water and devoured it without heating the spice. I also remember sighting a pale boiling with rice at a senior’s corner with a boiling ring hanging.

Making friends with seniors was unlikely, still some of us did on a fragile frame in the early years of boarding experience. I remember Nebor 336: Femi, Senior Akinade, and the hardworker: Senior Clement. However, my friends and I could not get along with seniors in the secondary school I category in the hostel; even so when we moved a class higher. One of them would want to send me on an errand and his senior would say “I have him, I already sent him somewhere”. It was a silver lining on the general hostel cloud but the fit doesn’t happen as often as a junior would have preferred. It was a privilege that embittered the senior school I clique in the days Balo’s adventures and Yinka Oyetade’s uniqueness mixed to produce a singular atmosphere of farce and contraband experiences in the hostel.