Mr Teacher the newbie!

A vault was broken into; my blogger account was hacked. That explains why there wasn’t any post on Monday. All said, posting resumes as usual – enjoy!

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“Ukaymeh – Ukime – Uukme.” Were the random pickups I could hear as some students tried to pronounce my name. While still on the stage, in nanoseconds, my mind flashed back to when I was in secondary school. I remembered how –sometimes – I gave my teachers nicknames; I feared nemesis.
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“These two gentlemen here will be our new Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics teachers”

Applause.

“Yay Yay!” The students shouted rapturously.

Standing on the rostrum of the makeshift assembly hall venue, I was transfixed, overwhelmed, and wondering. Why are these students so happy? To my left was Hillary who, I thought, was thinking the same thing too.
“Young men please introduce yourselves –” The principal said to us.

“I am Corper Ukeme.”

“Ukaymeh – Ukime – Uukme.” Were the random pickups I could hear as some students tried to pronounce my name. While still on the stage, in nanoseconds, my mind flashed back to when I was in secondary school. I remembered how –sometimes – I gave my teachers nicknames. I feared nemesis.

[I guess students are always happy when they have young teachers. With a smaller age difference between the teacher and the taught, interaction flows better and understanding is deeper….or so I thought – as you’d shortly see in this series.]

Hillary soon introduced himself and the assembly was dismissed. It was the first day of school for the new term and the school premises was unkempt with shrubs and grasses. Students flew here and there with hoes and cutlasses in their hands waiting for portions to be marked out for them to cut and weed: which, by the way, was a nightmare to me while in secondary school.

Quite notably, very few teachers were present and I wondered why. I had never even dreamt of being in the shoes of a teacher; though I admire and respect them, I never felt I was up to that task. Now a strange reality had broken – I was Mr. Teacher.

Hillary and I – having no office yet – walked and sat under a Dongoyaro tree located at the very centre of the school. Surrounding us – in quadrangular fashion – was the academic block comprising all classes. While there, I just put on my observation glasses (I believe you know what I mean): below I describe some of the stuff I saw.

Scene 1:
Two senior secondary girls (I know they are senior because they wear skirts instead of the gowns the junior students wear) stand at the door of their classroom look in our direction then look away then look at us again. They whisper to one another, walk towards us, stop in their tracks and walk back. I pretend that I do not see them and keep a straight face. Soon enough, however, they muster sufficient courage and come to us.

“Please sir we have Mathematics now,” they say, “come and teach us.”
“The school has not told us specifically what we are to teach,” I reply, “besides we have just resumed and we don’t even have a scheme of work.”

“Ok sir!” They reply and run off laughing.

I can’t help but think: are these students so serious?

Scene 2:
Around eleven O’clock a food seller walks into the premises with her wares.

“Efunmi rice forty naira, ewa twenty.” I hear a young Junior secondary school boy say in yoruba – which means: “give me rice forty naira and beans twenty naira.” To which the food seller dexterously serves four little spoons of the order.

By now, a crowd had formed around the seller and orders bounce along from head to head.
The young boy carries his food, served in a small blue rubber plate a short distance away and begins to eat – standing. If I remember right, it appears he is simply swallowing the meal. By my guesstimate, the food evaporates in about ten table spoons and the inner of the plate appears washed clean. Apparently, the lad doesn’t spare even a grain. Perfection!

I can’t help but think: are these students so hungry?

Scene 3:
Two senior boys walk towards the cashew plantation and a junior boy, playing football, runs into their path unknowingly.

Slaps on his head and back.
“Sorry sir – sorry senior.” The boys begs them profusely.

[It reminds me of secondary school. When I was in SS2, I remember a day when every boy in my class slept under the bunk of a particular senior student. He slept on the lower rung of a double bunk bed and he punished us so. This senior student forced all SS2 boys to join the chapel choir – we refused – and our reward was that punishment. We all – more than twenty of us – struggled for space on the floor under his bed.

When he arrived, he started flogging all body parts not contained under the bunk’s corners – so we squeezed in even more. It was a baptism of fire. To make matters worse, after the punishment, we all had to join the choir. I can still recall the bemused look on the eyes of the junior students when we all appeared on Sunday seating at the choir section of the chapel. If not for the fear of punishment, they would have laughed us to scorn.]

The senior boys land some more slaps and walk off, shirts not tucked in with a swagger attached to their gait.

I can’t help but think: are these students so wicked?

Scene 4:
A group of  junior students, two girls and a boy fetch water from the tap. I look closely and see that they are fetching it into Peak milk cups and used Derica cups (the type rice sellers use to measure out their commodities.)

They stroll out and soon begin to drink out of their respective cups. At first I think it’s just water they are drinking but soon I notice that they drink then chew then drink then chew.

“Come here,” I call out to one of the students, “all of you – what are you drinking?”
“It’s garri sir – we are drinking garri.”
“Garri? Did you add sugar – or milk?”
“No Sir, it’s just garri and water sir.”
“You can go.”
“Thank you sir.”

I can’t help but think: is garri supposed to be a break-time snack?

All in all, that was how my first day at work went. Sitting under the shade of an old Dongoyaro tree all I did was look around and make notes in my mind. Did I hear you say boring?

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