MEMOIRS FROM WAY BACK WHEN

This evening, I was going through all my albums out of boredom then I saw some of my secondary school pictures sticking out of one. Immediately, memories of my days then in school came flooding into my head and they were as clear as day. It was like I was walking on this road, no lane…what do you call it? I'm clicking my fingers here. Help me out. Thank you for reminding me, yes I was walking on the memory lane and I saw a younger version of me doing stuff. I started to reminisce about all the fun times in school especially with my great friends then --- Pelumi, Elena, Betsy, Barakat and Princess (not their real names anyway but the first letter of each is).

We were like a tight-knit family, a great clique, a sisterhood, soul sisters right from our junior days. Then, I always thought our friendship would last forever even after school and our children would also be friends too. Call it delusional but dears, it was that awesome. I have a few tidbits to share. Every Friday after school,we used the money we had saved all week to eat at the university restaurant close to the school. Call it a ‘’Friday special’’. Yeah, we would walk along the corridors of the university hostel like we owned the school and with our uniforms ooo. People would be staring at us and in our young minds, we thought it was maybe because we were hot and they couldn’t get enough of these steaming hot chics. Hahahahahahahaha, I'm laughing so hard as I remember this because now, I realize it’s because we were not even supposed to be there and they were probably looking at us like ‘’who are these small girls forming like they are dons?’’  Well, we didn’t care or give a hoot, in our minds it was our right to dine there.

After school, we would take the long walk home gisting before we boarded a taxi or a bike. We had the money to take one right from school but that was our way of bonding. Sometimes, during the weekend, we would all meet either at my house, Pelumi’s or Elena’s like it was some female fraternity..heehee…but then we would gist and gist about boys, crushes on ‘who’ from ‘who’, generally things happening in the class for hours. I used to get teased at a lot by Pelumi and Elena because they claimed my French teacher really liked me and I never found that funny at all. For one, I used to find him rather irritating and his poor dress sense wasn’t helping matters at all. C’mon, the man would wear black shirt with yellow trousers and red shoes or green shirt with green trousers. I’m not kidding. I’m surprised the other teachers or even the principal never warned him to stop dressing like a hobo so he wouldn’t influence any of the other male students around. Kai, the guy thought he had high fashion dress sense ooo. And Girls, if any of you are reading this, I still don’t find it funny.  A funny thing I also recall is that whenever a new student transferred to our school and he/she was placed in our class, we would begin ‘’forming’’ things to make a good first impression like we wanted the girl or guy to think we were very cool. Was all that really necessary? I guess we all still do it in a way so people have that good, lasting impression of us and they don't think we are losers or something.

In my junior days, I think when I was in JSS3, we had this test in Agric class, a test I hadn’t really studied for. I was soooo nervous that I was sweating on my brow as I wrote it. When the test papers were marked and assigned to the class monitor to share around, I was so jumpy, apprehensive. In my mind, I had failed the test. So I just resigned myself to the fact that I did bad. Eventually, my paper was given to me, I blinked my eyes twice to be sure what I saw on the paper was real. There it was, crystal clear, yours truly had 21/30. So great was my joy that I jumped on the desk and started singing a weird song that popped in my head. It went like this as far as I can remember ''21/30…uhhh…uhhh….see you in the morning when your time is gone, see you in the morning when your freaking time is gone’’…It was pretty catchy. Now that I think about it, what the hell was I saying? And to think my friends joined me in the song when they had no idea what I was singing about. Even though others had 26 or 27, the fact that I did well without studying as I should really made me sing like a crazed person. It’s funny because I was shy and quiet then so you can imagine what joy would make a quiet one sing in such manner. Hahahaha…Great times…

Whenever school-fees defaulters were sent outside the school and any of my friends were outside, I would feel sullen and wish I didn’t pay so quickly so I could stay outside too and be with them. The class would be so boring you could hear a leaf fall and it was never exciting without them around. During the Inter-house competitions, we would make sure we dressed up real good even though it was against the rules. In fact, almost everyone did it. We called it ‘mufti’ then. How could we wear a uniform to the sports competition when that was a chance to show people a piece of what our wardrobe clothing looks like? Hahahaha.

Teasing ourselves was always a big thing with us. We would tease Princess for her ‘ajebo’ way of talking, Pelumi for the huge crush one Hausa guy in our class (who-shall-not-be-named) had on her, Betsy for her big ass, Elena for her motherly ways, Barakat for her Chinese eyes,  me for.. well, I already mentioned that above. We always got each other’s back. An attack on one was an attack on all. Yeah, we would go all mafia on anyone who tried to cross any of us (not like the Italians ooo, no drive-by shootings, hahaha, just assault with words). Pelumi was especially good at that. Although Betsy later transferred to another school, she was still seen as part of the group. I was the quiet one but now, I chatter like non-stop. Life, ahhh life made me talk this way.

On our graduation day, after all the usual speeches and snapshots, we had a little celebration par-tay in my house. My late friend that I talked about earlier in my other post was there too. It was soooo much fun. We danced and danced like there was no ‘morrow with a couple of my other close male friends (not from my school though). I still have the videotape at home. It’s so refreshing to see how innocent-eyed we looked back then. We made contact with each other after school for a few months. We got to see Betsy, did the usual meetings in my house or Elena’s. Later on, Princess left for China without telling any of us. Nothing, no goodbyes!!! It hurt like crazy. When Facebook became the in-thing in Naija a few years later, I tried looking her up. Still, I didn’t see her on the search engine. I even tried typing the words in Chinese. HAHAHA, that’s just me kidding.

Six years later, we are not that tight-knit group we used to be. We made new friends in another phase of life – the university. I’m still very very close with Elena though. She has always remained a great and wonderful friend of mine and I think it is safe to say she knows me inside-out after 10 years of friendship. I guess the fact that we were not all in the same city anymore drifted us apart. We call each other once in an eclipse or send each other the perfunctory text messages on our birthdays but the spark’s gone. What happened to us??? I still miss you girls..ahem..ladies. I hope you read this in time even if it’s a year, two or five years from now. To my first ''group-besties'', this is me reaching out blindly and extending the olive branch. 


Te quiero mi chicas. Oh that's 'I love my girls' in Spanish. It sounds nicer in Spanish, don't you think so?