First of all, I'm yet to understand the connection between Nigeria and her curriculum with the French language. I think there's something we don't know because why is it always French? Maybe the French people have plans to colonize Nigeria in the future—because if it's not French, it must still be French in high school, nothing else. And it’s always forced on students, with real flogging involved.
Okay, aside from that, I had a very funny and terrible experience with the French language way back in secondary school. There were numerous cases I would love to talk about, but let me focus on one.
There was this guy called Shedrack, but because he was good at sports—especially football—he got the nickname "Sheshe," derived from SHEdrack and pronounced as "Shay-shay."
For those of you who were forced to learn French like me in high school, I don’t know if you remember what the teacher usually said in French whenever he wanted us to open a particular page of the French textbook. If your teacher didn't use that on you, you were lucky. I guess our teacher was mean back then, because he would drop his English at the door before entering the classroom and switch completely to French as if he was talking to his French-speaking friends. So yeah, he would always say everything in French.
Whenever he wanted us to open a page, he would go on to say, “Shayshay lapaj, catch overando” (Yeah, I didn’t want to Google it, but that’s exactly how the sentence sounded), and the class would burst into laughter.
The teacher would get confused at the loud laughter and the hailing directed at Shayshay(Shedrack). And guess what? That French sentence used to irritate him(Shedrack) a lot because we turned it into his nickname and used it to bully him. Meanwhile, the guy was muscular and always ready to fight anyone using the French sentence to mock him.
One particular Thursday, my luck saw me and ran away from me. Shayshay caught me and landed a slap on me for earlier using the French sentence on him. I returned the slap, and it resulted in a full-blown WrestleMania. Not long after, we were separated, and the French teacher—who was supposed to teach us in the next period—walked in and met the heat of the argument. He called everyone into the class to judge the issue publicly.
By then, I was so angry, with a fuming face and breathing heavily. The French teacher asked us to narrate what had happened, and he pointed at me first, maybe because he saw that I was the victim, considering I was far smaller than Shedrack. I tried to keep quiet to see if he would point at Shedrack to speak first, but he didn’t allow that. He wiped the cane in his hand on the desk, accompanied by a loud, authoritative sound: “Will you explain what caused the fight?!”
By then, the class had gone quiet like heaven.
I began, “Shedrack was fighting me because I called him Shaysheay lapaj.....”
“Catch overando!!!” the class stole it from me and echoed it loudly, and at that moment, I didn’t know when my angry face burst into laughter.
“Wait, wait, what’s that? What’s Shayshay la paj catch overando?” the French teacher asked in surprise, and the way the class burst into loud laughter again, Shayshay was fueled with even more anger and wanted to descend a blow on the teacher—but quickly realized it was a teacher and not a student.
In the end, the teacher finally understood that it was the way he used to tell us to open to a page that led to the nickname. He laughed to stupor. That day, the nickname ended up being permanently stuck to Shedrack because everyone became bold enough to call him that, and he stopped fighting back.
We still call him by that name till today. He’s married now though.
Thanks for reading.
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