Boarding School: Contraband Wars 2

In a previous post, I mentioned that my secondary school in Nigeria did not allow provisions or tuck, as such snacks are called over here. No sweets, no chocolate, no garri, no powdered milk, no Milo, no sugar, no groundnuts, no nothing. The only food we were allowed, was the food served in the dining hall and even that one, you had to hustle for. If you were unfortunate enough to have a greedy senior on your table, you might end up eating half your daily calorie allowance for months at a time.

Of course, we did our best to break this law. Indomie used to enter our dormitories via people's underwear. The house mistresses' soon wised up and pat searches were introduced. Fortunately for me, my mother was a board member and so she visited my school often. On those visits she would bring perishables that had to be stuffed down quickly in the backseat of our car. I spent many a break time, swallowing meat pies, jollof rice and chicken. One time and I do think only once, she brought provisions for us. Perhaps they were not even for us. They were probably in the boot of the car and my sister and I, starved children that we were, jumped on them. A few packs of biscuit, some Caprisonne, some crisps, nothing much but in boarding school terms, we had hammered.

We sneaked our provisions back into our dormitory by an open window. Now we had got them in, the hardest part was stopping ourselves from getting caught. I used to wait till midnight to eat those biscuits and even then, I would crunch them very quietly to myself. This is not to say I was selfish. My close friends knew about my stash, I even gave them a few crumbs but we were very discreet. Every morning I would take my laundry bag and attach it to my dormitory window that overlooked an empty room. Then I would push the laundry bag into the empty room so the only part of it you could see from my room was the coloured strings attaching the bag to my window grill.

I thought I was safe. We all thought we were safe, myself and the others that had stuffed their goodies in their pillows and under their beds and behind wardrobes. But ladies and gentlemen, we did not know we had a spy in our midst. Perhaps, she never fell into any friendship group that had a contraband distributor in its circle. Perhaps she did but was dissatisfied with the few crumbs that were given her. Whatever her motive, she began to expose our hideouts.

The first person the school authorities took out was Ebun. It happened one Monday afternoon. Ebun came back from school, dropped her books in her wardrobe and went to lie on her bed. She did not hear the reassuring crinkle that usually told her that her packets of crisps were safe. She sat up and felt her pillow. She pulled out the foam. The pillow case was empty.

"Who stole my grub?"

Everyone looked up, including the spy.

"Ehn, Ebun your crisps are not there? Check well. Maybe you moved it somewhere else." We all said. She checked her pillow. She checked under her duvet. She checked in her cupboard. Still, no crisps. Ebun cried and we consoled her. The school authorities had struck.

"Don't worry Ebun. I'll give you a crisp when I open my packet."

After we finished commiserating, some of us went to change our hiding places. I left my laundry bag where it was. No-one could possibly look there...without information.

The next victim was Sumbo. She had hidden her contraband behind her locker. Chioma was next, her sweets were in her pant bag. At first, we thought it was a thief. But no thief would be so daring as to strike again and again in such quick succession. Then one day, I came back to my dormitory and found my laundry bag, neatly laid out on my bed, empty. This was the last straw. Something had to be done. Our room prefect, worried she might be next, staged a witch-hunt. We all lined up next to our lockers and she searched each one. No-one had the missing food. Our dormitory was not plagued with a thief but with a spy.

"Whoever casted about our grub will come last in class."

No-one really had the stomach to pronounce a curse any grimmer than that. After all, warped though our values had become due to sugar deprivation, we were not deranged enough to think the loss of a few biscuits were worth a life.

That night, all over the room, the remaining snacks were brought out of their hiding places and consumed. It was better to finish a month's supply of contraband in one night than not to eat it at all. Of course, no-one could finish their stock by themselves so we all enjoyed. Including the spy. We never found out who she was.

Boarding School: Contraband Wars

When one uses the term 'boarding school' in England, the images conjured are of horse riding, lacrosse sticks and tartan. My Nigerian reality was slightly different. The only horses we saw were in Agricultural Science text books, a lacrosse stick would have been seized for looking like a weapon and I'm not sure I even knew what tartan was back then.

Some of the most vivid memories I have are of the contraband wars that we students fought with our housemistresses and housemasters. The contention rose from this. Since time immemorial, students have been allowed to bring food, tuck, provisions to school. A few sweets here, a little garri, some Milo, a packet of biscuits nothing major or harmful. But in my second term of boarding, the authorities decided that the established practice of substistuting horrid school meals with tuck was unacceptable so all provisions were banned.

We were furious! How dare they take away our rights to eat biscuits in break time? How dare they stop us from slurping garri and water and sugar in the middle of the night? So we rebelled in the only way we knew. Not by protests or walking out of class or shouting down our teachers (all these tactics were for our more advanced brethren overseas). Instead, we resorted to subterfuge: smuggling. And our teachers resorted to human rights violations: searches.

At first the authorities tried to counter this wave of smuggling by searching our boxes at the beginning of each term. Before we were allowed into the boarding house, we would line up with our boxes waiting to be searched by the zealous housemistresses and their minions.

"On the table," one housemother would bark and we would be forced to hoist our heavy boxes onto these tables. Then unceremoniously they would unzip our boxes and begin to rifle through, poking our underwear, shaking out our carefully folded shirts to make sure that no bars of chocolate were hidden away in the sleeves. Nothing was sacred. Underwear, pads, even pat searches for those who thought they could escape by stuffing some sweets in their pockets.

We students grew wise. We bought boxes that had bottoms that you could unzip to reveal another layer underneath. We got parents (willing conspirators in the war against injustice) to drive to the back of the boarding house before they left and pass goods through the windows.

We grew wise but the authorities grew wiser. Though we managed to get the food in we always had to be on the alert because you never knew when your room would be chosen for a shock search. You would come back from school and see your locker scattered or your bed overturned all in the quest for illegal garri and groundnuts. Some stuffed food in their pillows. They were discovered. Some stuffed food in their bathing buckets. They were discovered. The most horrid memory I have of the contraband wars is of a girl standing beside her upset wardrobe and the house mother clutching a small bag of garri in her hand triumphantly.

But we students had our victories too. We still managed to keep some provisions from the grabbing hands of the housemistresses and we ate our forbidden tuck late into the night, knowing that we might have lost many battles but we would never lose the war.

I too must confess that I smuggled and whenever I undergo the mandatory box search at Murtala Mohamed Airport and see how the guards avoid my underwear and slide their hands gently through my clothes, I chuckle to myself. The Nigerian security force has nothing on my Head Matron. Nothing at all.

The Nickname

"What's your name?"
"Chi***du"
"Sorry I can't pronounce that. Do you have any nicknames?"
"Chikachoo."
"I can't pronounce that either."

I looked at this Chinese girl who had just spurned the only nickname I had ever known. It was bestowed on me one summer holiday, by an English child who lacked the energy and dexterity to pronounce the long name that my parents were shortsighted enough to give me. Clearly, at my naming ceremony, they had forgotten that one day I would come in contact with foreigners who would have trouble pronouncing my three syllabled tongue twister of a name.

"Isn't there anything else I can call you?"

It was my first day of boarding school and I was eager to oblige but short of inventing a new name for myself I did not see what else I could possibly do.

"Tell her to call you Chibs," my oldest sister said from inside the room. She had been to the same school and she knew the drill. Foreign students renamed themselves when they arrived.
"Chibs? Nobody calls me that."
"Chibs is better than Chikachoo. Do you want to be called Chikachoo for the rest of your four years here."
"Yeah," the Chinese girl snorted from the doorway. "Chikachoo sounds like Pikachu."

We all laughed.

What was I thinking. Chikachoo did sound like Pikachu.

"Yeah, you can call me Chibs."
The girl remained in the doorway watching me unpack. She had been assigned to make me feel at home and this duty included watching me unpack though I had also brought my sister and my mother to do the same thing.

"So what's your name?" I said, standing my now empty box.

"Yao Min Xian Ho Min Tse Yung."

I later learnt how to call her properly but that first day, that was what her name sounded like.

"But everyone calls me Charlie."
I raised an eyebrow. "Charlie?"
How did one get to Charlie from Yao Min Xian Ho Min Tse Yung.
"Yeah Charlie."
I didn't ask.

As I arranged my things on my sink, I was suddenly glad that Chibs at least resembled the original.

Charlie and I became good friends but she never called me Chi***du and I never called her Yao Min. I wonder if we would have been different people if we'd used our real names.