My story may not differ from yours…not all is rosy

What went wrong? I have asked myself countless times but the more I subjected myself to scrutiny, the more frustrated I became.

A boy who hails from a very secluded hinterland had to walk each day throughout on bare foot despite unfavorable weather conditions, reptiles and could barely see the narrow path I walked through several miles to another village just to acquire basic education. That could only take high determination to achieve. No wonder many got frustrated and gave up.

Why did I have to persevere to that extent? Your guess could be as excellent as mine but the truth remains that if I had a better option at the time.... As a young boy, growing up in the village was not an easy one. Thankfully, my father was very good a peasant farmer who made sure we had more than enough to eat all year round. I still remember the number of times some people had to rely on my father for food stuffs just to survive the night. However, the old boy was financially handicapped.

My mother had to sell cassava(kponkponti) on every Busie market day and the penny she generated enabled her buy ingredients for our soup. At the time, the village lived without even a daycare. No one went to school, in fact no one understood the relevance of sending a child to school. For your own interest, if you wanted to enroll in school, you did that at the expense of your own freedom. Under the leadership of the then village committee chairman, the village decided to start a school.

The common adage that "some misfortunes are blessings" my case was not different at all. According to my old boy, his decision to take me to school was because I am a left-handed person and so can not farm. Eventually, I became a schoolboy and was part of the pioneers of the village primary school. Primary one to primary six was handled by only one teacher who sacrificed to be transferred to the village. Naturally, once you were good you were made a leader and that is how I became the first senior prefect from primary one to primary six that is at Chebaa primary School.

Consequently, the determinants of my next level of academic laurels at the time again rested in the hands of two teachers throughout three years of Junior Secondary school. I had no one to either look up to or emulate, you either focused on farming or went to "jongsec"(going to the southern sector to do menial jobs like weeding for income). I was compeled to be a role model on my own and inspire the villagers in pursuance of academic work. The only things that inspired us in the village at the time, were "Jongsec", early marriages, farming and of course playing around which happened to be my favourite.

At the Junior Secondary level, my colleagues and school mates called me all kind of names because I virtually went to school without uniform, looking white and dirty. But it did not discourage me, I neither relented on my efforts nor rested on my oaths and eventually emerged the best student of the school when the BECE final results were released. Did it surprise anyone? Obviously the answer is the negative because I was such a bright student. All is not rosy.

To me, I knew that if my first choice of secondary school would not offer me admission but the second choice should fall in my favour, ironically that only happened in my dreams and the beginning of my predicament. When the admissions were out, I went to Nandom secondary school, surprisingly my name could not be found. I went to Lawra secondary school with lots of hope and faith that my name would be there only to be left disappointed.

As for my last choice of school which was in Balgatanga, I never went there because I didn't have money to go. I sat home dejected and despaired for two months until I decided to go back to Junior Secondary again. On arrival at my alma mater, thus Uollo R/C junior secondary school, I met this primary school teacher who wanted to know why I came back because he knew I had passed and was supposed to be in school.

After a long narrative of my ordeals and hustle to enroll in senior secondary school, he empathized with me and said that my results were too good to go to secondary school rather than go back to JSS. He assured me that he was going to take me to Wa secondary school. To my dismay, after a week I met him, he came back to tell me to immediately go to Kaleo secondary technical school to pay and collect my admission letter.

To be honest, I wept internally but I did not have a choice. My father went round the whole village from one house to other in search for money to borrow for me to pay my fees but to no avail. At a point I felt my world has shattered. I sobbed and wondered, awaiting desperately for a miracle but everything seemed so hopeless. The meagre I made from "jongsec" after my BECE exams could only pay a part of my admission fees.

Kaleo secondary technical school at the time was a day school. We had to combine learning and cooking throughout the entire term. As I tried to avoid "jonsec", little did I know I would have to rely on it during every vacation holidays to enable me buy reading materials, pay my school fees and for my own upkeep while in school.

Whilst in school, I struggled, ate gari without sugar, persevered and got married to only my books until I completed KASTS. All praises and glory be to the most high God. The God of heaven and earth who makes sure impossibilities are possible. I came out from KASTS with flying colours proceeded to the Jirapa Nurses Training College where I pursued Diploma in General Nursing.

I then worked both as a staff nurse and the Casualty/Emergency unit Incharge both in the Upper West Regional hospital and Lawra District hospital respectively for three years before proceeding to the School of Medicine, University for Development Studies, Tamale, where I pursued Bachelor of science degree in Anaesthesia and Intensive care.