Mawuli Zogbenu is the author
I told you before that after my national service a little over 2 decades ago, I went to rent my own single room not because I didn’t have a place in my family house o but because of bad mind. I didn’t want my Mother to see that I have become bad boy. All I needed was a bedsheet on slim bed. I managed to get a woolen carpet but no chair in the room. It was strategic. Hahahahaha!
Any female visitor must sit on the bed where I will also be sitting or lying down. Hehehehehe! At that moment I often prayed for the rains to start pouring so she cannot go home that night. But some of those ladies were too tough no matter where I asked them to sit; they could stand for hours and still leave and walk through the rains when they suspect you of any mischievous agenda (which is often the case). Girl enter boy’s room, it starts to rain and boy no get agenda? Impossible. Hahahahaa!
Probably nothing excites a young man at that point when he is told by the lady who has been bluffing him to say: ‘okay, please go and lock the door first and come’ kw3333, at this point even if you had lost your job the previous day, you would be relieved as if the situation has turned rather into an announcement of salary increase. If you like try it now and see! Hahaaa!
You see, when you get what you desire, it means God’s direction has come to pass. When you don’t get it even though you have prayed saaaa for it, then it means God’s protection of you is at work. Amen? Be there thinking God is not minding you upon all the prayers.
He is minding you papa! A friend did everything possible to buy his dream car even though the seller didn’t want to sell it to him at the price he wanted it. He went for a loan to buy that car and heaved a sigh of relief: ‘Thank you, God’.
Last weekend after the heavy downpour, the car was completely submerged in the flood waters and currently is at the workshop. Be careful how you crave for things. God knows why He denies you certain things wae. For example, nothing. Hahaaa!
Why is it that we all want to go to school, fill forms, pay fees but we don’t like lectures koraaa like that? In Primary 5, the message comes through the class prefect that the Maths teacher says he is not feeling well so no class and then we jubilate, in fact celebrate his sickness.
We continue to the secondary school, the value is the same. At the Bachelor’s degree level, the story is sweeter: ‘lecturer says no lectures today, hurrayyyyyyy’! It is even sweeter at the Masters level and beyond. Just pray for the lecturer’s car to break down while on his way to class so class will be cancelled.
What I personally hated so much was when the class leader comes to announce that the lecturer says he will be late; late for where? Just cancel the class and let’s go our somewhere.
The sweetness comes in only when in 20 minutes later, the class leader comes back to announce that ‘the lecturer says he cannot come at all’! That is when you see adults jubilating. Ao! Hmmm! There are only a few serious ones usually ladies who get disappointed when the lecturer fails to come to teach.
The lazy ones like me will celebrate. Why not? No man really likes bathing especially in this weather; it’s because of circumstances! No be so? Hahaaaaaaa!
In spite of all of these negative prayers, we are hopeful we would pass our exams at the end of the term / semester! If we fail to pass, we blame the lecturer. If you get a C, you would say ‘he gave me a ‘C’ o’. If your grade is an ‘A’, then you hit your chest in pride, ‘I got an ‘A’. God forgive us for our ingratitude!
My friend Kofi Boakyi and I decided to go on rampage and instigate our course mates to petition the Dean of our faculty. The reason? At the end of the semester exam, half the class scored grade C in a particular course and the other half scored ‘F’. I was the class president as the case was at such a level, not class prefect.
You know how these things work; at JSS, a straight edge is called ‘ruler’; the name changes as soon as one enters SSS into ‘rule’. When green plantain ripens, its name changes from bordi3 to korkorrr! As regards this abysmal performance and the fact that the lecturer / examiner had been wicked to us, we needed to ‘cause’ him too.
We matched into the Dean’s office chanting and upon entry, we saw the Dean but right behind him going through some files was the ‘wicked’ lecturer. Ei! We didn’t expect him to be there o; apparently he is a friend to the Dean. Numbering about 20 ‘faceless’ petitioners, I was the leader with the petition in my hand. We only hoped that the lecturer would not know our names.
Dean then asks: ‘Amani3’. I didn’t know where to start from. I was fortunate to be one of those who obtained at least a ‘C’ so why do I endanger my life with this leadership choboi choboi?
What if at the end of the day, the lecturer decides to reverse my grade to ‘F’ for being ‘loud mouth’? What if indeed I scored an ‘F’ but then he mistakenly gave me a ‘C’? Wouldn’t this be the time to be ‘exposed’?
Is it not better to ‘cry my own cry?’ Class President for where? I pretended to have received a call, went out and straight to central cafeteria to go and drink beer. I left them there. As to what happened to them, Joe Kofi Boakyi was the Asst Class Prez; he should take over! Me? To have been lucky with a ‘C’, leading a team of ‘Failures’ to go and do what? What if they withdraw my C and make it F? Tweaaa! They should be there; that’s my back case!
Later, when Kofi Boakyi and his rampaging F students came back, they accused me of betraying them. I explained to them why I left and that it was due to running stomach. As to how they managed to come out of the Dean’s office, that was their problem.
Boakyi and I were very ‘lazy’ students. In class, we would sleep in turns. When I sleep for 5 minutes, I would wake up and ask him to also sleep for 5 minutes. One day, the lecturer asked a question on what he had taught us the previous day. Nobody would volunteer.
The lecturer, frustrated threatened that if nobody raised his or her hand, he would mention names o. Boakyi’s immediate response into the microphone unknowingly was: ‘Nyame npengu’ (God forbid). Ei! You registered for a course and ‘God forbid’ that your name would be called to answer a question? Ei! Prof Boubou, I doubt if you are still alive though I will be surprised if you are because all your age mates are ‘gone’!
Have a great weekend and remember honey tastes sweeter if you are the one who worked for it. Don’t think about this; just befriend a swarm of bees or have a handshake with a crab! Na in you go sabi say ‘monkey smart monkey smart; it is all because the trees are near each other!
