My high school times were full of experiences that can never be forgotten in a hurry. I was a young, pretty, studious and obedient student who kept all the rules and never liked getting into trouble, I also had the best of friends who were very intelligent and this had a lot of positive impact on me as well. Admist my composure, I committed a few offence such as skipping calculation subjects classes, skipping preparation classes and a few others and these acts landed me into mild trouble. But this very one offence that I committed for the very first time landed me in heavy trouble and that day continues to be a nightmare for me whenever I remember it.
I happened to be a boarding student in a mixed (boys & girls) seminary school during high school days, and as we all know, seminary schools can be very strict when it comes to keeping rules. So it is a norm for the females to have an early morning general worship in their hostel before the main general school assembly after breakfast. This early morning worship normally starts around 4:00am and doesn't really take that long, just for 20 minutes but because of the numerous announcements by our hostel janitor and also by our female prefects,we stand there with our sleepy eyes till 5:30am馃槙
We had just resumed for a new term, that was in my senior secondary school 1 (SS1) It was my first resumption morning in school and the weather was very cold and being that my school is located close to a big river called Imo river, one could freeze to death during cold weather periods especially during harmattan season. For me, I was still having that home feeling where I needed not to bother to wake up so early for morning worship. The sound of the worship bell and the banging on our big entrance gate woke me up really but I was too reluctant to stand up. After all I just resumed, the prefects and janitor will not take this first morning worship very serious and even if they come searching in the hostel to fetch people who defaulted, I will have to be smart enough to hide without them finding me. I thought! As other girls were hurrying to the worship ground..
Phewwww! I dozed off!馃槾馃槾
I was all covered up in my blanket enjoying my beauty sleep when I heard a bang on my hostel door.
"Who are those still in bed in this hostel"
My janitor asked in a harsh tone! Immediately I jumped up from the bed and managed to hide my whole body under my bed bunk. This was the smart idea I had incase I get caught because I thought our janitor wouldn't be smart enough to check under the bunks but my thoughts failed me big time馃槩
"Carefully search under the bunks she ordered in a high tone!"
She had come for the search with two gallant prefects. My heart skipped and I wished the ground could open and swallow me up at that moment. I also regretted not going out for morning worship that very morning, it was the very time I intentionally defaulted
The prefects began to search under the bunks, other defaulters were caught and flogged, and I was kinda happy that I won't be the only defaulter, I wished the prefects will get exhausted and not get to my own side of the bunk cus my bunk was at the end of the hostel, but they were gallant enough and never got tired till they got to my own side of the bunk and dragged me out. I came out trembling and pleading with the prefects but they never cared to listen.
Finally after the search, we were paraded to the worship ground and were given 12 strokes of cane on our buttocks, it was so painful cus we were still on our light night wears so the strokes really entered very well. The janitor further went ahead to tell the other students our offense and how she would use us as scapegoats. I was in so much tears! If I had known..馃槶
Our punishment portions were shared to us and we were given a strict supervision on it for one month. We were five in number that defaulted and somehow I felt their own portions was easier than mine because my own portion was to pound POO鈽癸笍
If you went to a boarding school you'll understand what I mean by pounding POO- POO. Ok let me explain, pounding POO-POO happens when a toilet system that is a bit faulty is filled up with excess POO that cannot be flushed with only water, but can only be flushed if an extra technique like pounding with a long fat stick is applied. The pounding is done to reduce the weight of the POO-POO before there will be a successful flushing with water.
This toilet is the general toilet that the girls use during school hours, it's 12 in number, 6 on the right and 6 on the left. For some unknown reasons, the whole 6 toilets by the left had this issue and anyone that's in charge of washing has to pound before flushing off. School had just resumed like I said earlier, students had emptied all the home made food they had into the toilet.. The whole toilet was a big mess! It was not an easy task my people, I had to pound two times in a day sometimes if the toilet gets messed up again cus if it's been supervised and is found dirty, then that would mean another extra day for me. Pounding POO-POO for the second time meant me doing that all dressed up in my school uniform and the times that I wasn't careful, some POO-POO splash stained my school uniform, this caused me to miss classes sometimes because I didn't want spoil the fresh in my classroom, if you know what I mean.. It was really a bad experience for a whole month and I regretted not being the good and obedient student that I used be. I get goosebumps each time I remember this irritating punishment馃槪
This is my entry to the week13 edition01 of the contest organized 