Moving Day – Aggrey’s Smizzle & C-Dorm
It’s when you see your prospectus that it actually dawns on you that this is happening… you are actually going to school. You’ll buy a chopbox, trunk, mattress, exercise books, provisions, sew khaki trousers and shorts, buy white shirts, shoes, sandals… all manner of wearables and eatables. Typically, when you’re a guy, you’ll forget about your soap, toothpaste, deodorant, etc, but that is what mothers are for. Mommy handled those things like a pro. You see, my big brother had been the lab rat three years earlier when he was going to high school; sucks to be a firstborn sometimes… just sometimes. Mommy had gained experience now, and I barely lifted a finger.
By 2pm my dad and I were driving into Motown. We took the second gate this time, close to the Achimota hospital – my dad had been told that was the easier route to Aggrey House. We drove past Lugard house where the boys in light blue live, they had nice lawns… we drove past Livingstone house where the guys in yellow live, they had nice lawns too, and a makeshift football pitch, but it looked like it got the job done. Finally, finally, we got to Aggrey house. Drumroll please…
What a Disappointment!!
Let me interject here. The Aggrey House you’ll see if you go to Motown today is not the Aggrey House I met in 2009. Thank God for progress! That place they took me to ehnn…
All the grass was dead. ALL OF IT. They had one-third of a pavement in front of the house. Yes, one-third. Like someone had started constructing a pavement to impress us or something, and then decided we weren’t worth the effort after all. But that didn’t kill me as much as the next thing I’m about to tell you. See oo, there were (mental count) 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, yes seven water tanks in that house… 4 Rambo 1000’s and 3 smaller polytanks… BUT!! The taps did not flow!!! I was confused. Motown… presidential school… taps not flowing. Ah! But this Aggrey House was Kwame Nkrumah’s house oo.
Hmph! Let me relax a little… I even skipped some details.
So we pulled up in front of the house. Some parents and some of my fellow newbies were gathered in front of a table with three people sitting behind it; one really short man and two boys. A group of students came up to the car and greeted, “Daddy, good afternoon. Can we help with your stuff?”
My father was impressed… I was not fooled. These guys were just happy to carry my chopbox in anticipation of “kwahyeeing“* me later. I noted their faces. They didn’t look too bright. I’d handle them.
As I was about to step out of the car, my dad said, “Twɛn” (wait). Oh nooooo! Not the advice! Not here too! I sighed, “Yes Da.”
Him: “I know you are a smart boy.”
Me (in my head): You do, do you? [nods]
Him: “I know you’ll study hard.”
Me (still in my head): That makes one of us. [nods again]
Him: “I need a favor from you.”
Me: “Okay?”
Him: “Errrm, can you come on the National Science and Math Quiz for me?”
If ever I’ve had mixed feelings, it was this day. I was touched… this man believed in me. But at the same time, I almost burst out laughing. Me… brilla boy? Did those people have lives? Did he really believe I could rub shoulders with those ultra-nerds? This man paaaahnn. What he didn’t know was that by raising his expectations in me he had inadvertently cut in half all the foolishness I’d planned to execute now that I wouldn’t be living under his roof. This was very possibly the moment in which I was saved from becoming the womanizer I’d envisioned myself to be in my fantasies. Aren’t God’s ways strange?
Ladies, and gentlemen, how I kept my face under control, I don’t know. But with the most serious of expressions, I replied, “Yes Da, I’ll try”. That answer seemed to satisfy him. Good. He would give me extra money for motivation, but before that he had to spoil the excellent mood he had built up, “And don’t follow girls! You hear me? They are dangerous! Your mother and I have brought you here to learn, not to become a father. Do you hear me?!”
Oh, my old boy. Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.
The Housemaster
We were quickly out of the car and in front of the table with the short man. Smizzle, they called him. He was the housemaster. Smizzle was short (get it?) for “Short Man Devil”. We’ll stick with Smizzle.
I was already tall at 14. I didn’t have to be tall to be taller than Smizzle though. But I learnt three key lessons early in my adolescence, after my first growth spurt:
- If you’ll laugh at a short person, make sure he/she is already your friend.
- Laugh at them to their face, not behind their back.
- When in doubt, refer to the picture below:
Smizzle was neither my friend nor my age mate. I wasn’t about to be a funny man. Besides, the two boys next to him – the house prefects – they looked like they could really bring on the meanness.
“Yes. Please, what’s your name?”, the first house prefect asked. “Senior, please, Kodzo Ametewee-Nutakor”, I replied. “My name is not senior”, he retorted. “Sorry senior – ei, sorry sir – ei, please, what should I call you?”. Ow chale, golden-tongued boy like me paa, see my childish first impression. The guy seemed amused. “We’ll introduce ourselves later” was his reply. Smizzle scanned through a notebook, and introduced himself with these words, “Fifty cedis”.
“Pardon me”, was dad replied.
“Fifty cedis”, he repeated.
“For?”, my old boy prodded.
“House development fund. We have a lot of renovations to do, mmm.”
Daddy is not the kind of person to roll his eyes, else he woul dhave. He’s a smart man, so he did not expose the thickness of his wallet. “Junior, give him the money”, he said to me, “I’ll replace it”.
Smizzle took the money, pointed at my things, and declared, “C-Dorm”. It seemed the intended audience had not heard the declaration. Smizzle shouted, “Hey!” at a bunch of students and pointed at my things again. The students rushed for the trunk like demons for a lost soul. “Where to?”, they asked. “Dorm C”, I replied. A smirk stole across the first house prefect’s face. “C-Dorm”, he corrected me, “follow them”.
I obeyed.
C-Dorm
Most houses in Motown have 4 dorms, A to D. C-Dorm is upstairs. I picked a bed next to a window. After my dad left I lay on the bed and looked outside, then I looked around and really took the room in.
Juniors were in the outer chamber, seniors in the inner chamber. Seniors were the only ones allowed to eat in the dorms, or keep their chopboxes in the dorms – the rest of us had to keep our chopboxes in a “Chopbox Room”. Downstairs! That one kraa didn’t pain me like the fact that this chopbox room had a padlock. Who told you my food needs protection?! It has it’s own lock you obsessive micromanagers!!! But I understood soon enough; the room had a padlock to keep my chopbox away from me 😥, not to protect the box.
C-Dorm, like the other three had wooden floors, and the walls were painted a creamy shade of yellow at the top and blue at the bottom. This would be home for the next four years? Didn’t seem so ba-
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! “All form one boys should get downstairs by the end of my tenth count!!”
“Teeeeeeeeehhhhn!”
“Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!”…
Ermmm, what I was saying? This was going to be one heck of a long and bumpy ride.
I came to school a good 3 years after you and all this still feels nostalgic. Motown really never changes 😂😂
Not you making me feel old, Osmond 😂