We can all agree that our days as students are among the most exciting days in our lives: the adventure, the tears, the laughter, the joy, the spanking (haha). Today I am going to narrate to you one of the many adventures we had as boarding school students.
During my high school days, I attended a boarding house (some of you probably know that already!). Apart from the little foodstuffs our parents give us when we resume, we were fed three times daily. The food was substandard and sometimes, I don't bother going to take the food and just stick with my provisions from home.
My clique members and I have a custom of going to the bushes every Saturday when it's rainy season to pluck fruits like mangos, tigernuts, groundnuts, and buried beans from the Fulani's farm(the Fulani are a nomadic tribe in Nigeria). Saturday is usually a free day when nothing is done, most students do their laundry for the week on Saturdays.
On a fateful Saturday, me and my clique members set out to the bushes as usual to get some mangoes and other things we could collect from the farm, we set out as early as 8:00am having done our laundry on Friday night. We intended to go far into the bushes in search of fresh mangoes as the trees nearby have all been plucked. We dived into the bush with our sacks, kept walking and walking until the sun became unbearable. We plucked large palm fronds to serve as shades over our heads as we continue walking. After walking for what seemed like eternity, we arrived at three huge mango trees, decorated with huge and fresh mangoes. Yes! Finally gotten what we're looking for! We decided to stop and immediately set to work. As an expert in tree climbing, I repeated hopped on branches and soon got to a branch with Juicy mangoes and started hauling them at my friends on the ground who kept stocking them into the sacks we brought. I repeated the same thing as I hopped from branch to branch. I soon saw a thick and long branch with mangoes numbering up to thirty but instead of plucking and hauling them I shook the branch vigorously. I kept shaking until they started falling heavily unto the ground. The thudding sound coupled with our excited screams alerted the farmers who unbeknownst to us, weren't that far from the tree. They arrived in no time with their long sticks and cutlasses threatening to kill us if we move an inch further. I who was still on the tree froze until one of them sighted me and yelled for me to come down which I did while shaking. I took my time so I would miss a branch while descending until I finally arrived on ground level. They threatened to report us to the school authority but we kept begging and crying for pardon for we knew the punishment such offence holds: an embarrassing spanking in the presence of your comrades on the assembly ground and a suspension letter. I'd rather they beat us up themselves than report us to the school. Seeing the tears were too much, they decided on another punishment were they told us to pile up the mangoes we plucked and start eating them without water. We agreed and set to work. The four of us started eating the mangoes but what started as something easy soon became something else, it seemed to us that the more we eat the mangoes, the more their numbers increased. I recall eating up to 30 mangoes before all of us burst into tears again. We fell on our knees, with our now large stomachs begging for forgiveness again. It was a funny yet pitiful sight.
They took pity on us and told us to take what's left of the mangoes but warned us to never show up there again. They even gave us transport fare to get back to the school as it was already getting late. With our runny noses and teary eyes, we thanked them profusely and swore never to set foot outside the school again. On getting to school we could "stomach" any more of the mango scent as it became nauseating so we shared the rest among our room-mates. We never told anyone what happened that day to avoid being laughed at. We however laughed at ourselves when we sat down to eat dinner.
I never set foot outside the school premises in the name of looking for mangoes again.
