MEMORIES FROM BOARDING SCHOOL DAYS: YINKA, THE MYSTERY SCHOOL MOTHER AND THE FAKE HEAD BOY

Another short article from boarding house memory lane

Yinka Oyetade won an award for the best student in three science subjects in his class, Senior Secondary School II. He had a bad leg and google eyes for reading a lot. I remember him sitting on his upper bunk which is directly opposite mine pressing a calculator with a speed I could hardly associate with doing normal arithmetic, as if he were pressing a bad calculator to time his pulse and steady himself throughout reading time and he himself was far from normal.  He was both intelligent and accommodating. He had a junior brother two classes below who was good at drawing. He used to set a complete football match in a book, kitting the players up in colourful jerseys with ink biro and describing events �" saves, goals, dribbles, officiating and so on so vividly it came alive to a viewer. I often begged him to produce such drawings for me: “Juventus FC Versus Real Madrid CF” for instance. Unlike him, Yinka was good in the sciences �" chemistry, physics, biology and the award proved it.

 

I also made an attempt at Robinson Crusoe in my first weeks of resumption into junior school, sitted beside Oladipupo Omowumi of Senior Secondary School II. It was hers to give during prep each time new students came into senior student’s classes for solace because we were yet to have our own personal lockers. I fondled with the book carelessly and read a bit, details I hardly remember now as I write this piece. What I remember though is that name: Oladipupo Omowumi, whom I only knew for few weeks. She was dark, stretched and skinny; the type I describe “gracious” who would later be the only person to point to if asked if I ever had a school mother at some point in junior school. Quite a conundrum but true, she’ll pass for the mystery school mother for accommodating a JJC for weeks during prep and giving him Robinson Crusoe to play with. The memory of it and those weeks beside her are as dear as the tears I shed on my first night in boarding house while Ceiling Dion’s “…so this is who I am…immortality” aided it in the background and a Senior School III student: “the fake head boy” comforted me kindly.