The teacher from hell

A depiction of fears and frustration of a rural school boy on typical tropical afternoon.

Thursday afternoon. Mid November. About 1:23pm. Break time is over. The long school hall echoes with uncontrollable chatter of restless bored pupils. Even the most obstinate among us had scurried in from the blazing sun. It is sweltering outside. The now empty playground simmers with evaporating heat. Everything is still. Not even the soft pines of the whistling trees lining the edge of the football field stir.

The corrugated zink overhead sends down waves of irritating heat with every crack, ...again, again and again. Everyone's face is balmy with cream of sweat, dust and sand. We are sandwiched in between one another upon rows and rows of dilapidating desks, sharing in mutuality the pervading stench of fermented sweat. From a distance, kites whistle lonesome tunes from supreme height of iroko trees. I wiped my forehead with the back of my left hand.

Home is the only thing on my mind now. Ditto most other pupils. I did not own a watch. The one on the wall of primary six class, at the far end of the hall does not work. But I know it was a matter of minutes before the liberating bell tolls. Before I walk home free. Free from molestation by bullying prefects and cane-happy headmaster.

...echoes of footfalls on the concrete floor. "The headmaster is here again with another dismissal announcement" I thought with certainty. I grabbed my ready packed bag and adjusted my buttocks to the edge of the desk. When I looked up again, my tiny heart sank -it was "LCM", my teacher, clutching a compressed packet of chalk under his left armpit! ...The sigh of disappointment and frustration was general. But it broke my heart. As if he knew the havoc he has wrecked on my life, he went straight to the blackboard without saying a word. He did not bother to look at our faces either. He just wiped the top of the board and wrote "Test on Maths". Then, I knew my day had ended in disaster.
(c) Nnabuife Ezema

Reviews

[Khushi Jhon]

I could imagine the disappointment and disaster that follows after writing an unprepared test with your whole being at home and with such conditions at schools ...