Awazzy For WASSCE
Motown has always had an interesting array of teachers… We’ve had teachers who spent invigilation time calculating figures for the lottery; we’ve had teachers who force everyone to call them “Professor”; we’ve had teachers who would use the F-word on you in class… you name it, we’ve had it. But of all the interesting teachers that ever were, Awazzy (meaning unknown, and real name forgotten) was definitely one to look out for. He taught us Social Studies during our first year in Science 4.
Awazzy had bushy hair and a pretty thick beard… a typical pan-African look… except, I can’t say for sure whether he gave a hoot about Africa. All I know for sure is that he loved Economics, his guitar, his wife and his farm; just not in that order.
Obviously, Awazzy would never teach us economics; we were science students. Very few of us ever saw his wife. The few who did said she was pretty, and he always spoke fondly of her: Mrs Awazzy. As for his guitar (and self-composed songs), for a full year he promised to bring the guitar to class and play one of his songs for us — he never did.
However, I do remember finding a video of him online, playing and singing “Babylon system bad, Babylon system wicked“. Sadly, that video is no longer on the internet… I checked.
He also said he’d write a Social Studies past questions book, “Awazzy For WASSCE”… I don’t know if he ever did.
This story, however, is about Awazzy’s farm… his cassava farm.
How It Started
Out of 40 students, science 4 had just about 10 girls, maybe less… I don’t remember. The mere fact that we were predominantly a male class, however, meant that the class was always, always, always hard to control. I would introduce everyone if I could, but really, how long do you want this story to be? Just flow with the names as they come.
Now Awazzy was a cool guy, so we didn’t like to give him a tough time. but every once in a while we’d get on his nerves. He had this “take-it-easy” air about him and he spoke like… well, to be honest, he spoke like Bob Marley. No, I’m not insinuating anything…I’m telling you how he spoke. So as you read anything he says, read it with a Bob Marley accent in your head.
Anytime we got on Awazzy’s nerves, his go-to startegy was to make everyone stand on their desk. BUT we knew his kryptonite. Awazzy never knew how to respond to “flow” and “fans”. He’d start blushing beneath his beard and discontinue whatever punishment he had given you. So typically, we’d be standing on our desks, and then one person, usually Jona, would start from the back in a low tone, “AWAAAAAAAAAAZZY”, then another voice, most likely Archie, would come from another corner, “AWAAAAAAAAAAAZZY”, then the voices would unite, “AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZY”, and everybody would jump in from there, “AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZYYYYY” until he’d become shy because other teachers would start coming out of their classes to see what was happening. Then he’d go like [insert Bob Marley tone], “Pleeeeease, pleeeeease, you guys are disturbing.”
“AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZYYYYY“, we’d interject.
“Okay, Okay, take your seeeats”.
Funny enough, even while taking our seats we’d still be flowing him. What at all was the matter with us?
Anyway, this strategy worked for weeks, then one day our class prefect, Onukpa–also known as the god of sleep becuase he could sleep through anything–did the unthinkable! He lost Awazzy’s notebook.
I know, I know, big deal right? How much does a notebook cost anyway? Tell that to Awazzy.
The dude got soooooo pissed, I was like, “Ei, chief, why?”, but of course I asked in my head. I’m not an idiot.
Awazzy could not be consoled. Till this day I don’t know why, but the guy had it out for us.
In Awazzy’s class, we prayed before he started teaching — it was his own little tradition. From that day, at the end of the prayer, he’d start the lesson with this line, “Science four… You’re all thieeeeeves.”
Days passed, still no notebook — I bet if he sees me today he’ll ask for his notebook — then one day we got on his nerves again. I can’t remember who exactly caused the commotion, but it’s usually safe to assume it was Climax (yup, we had a lot of weird names). This was Awazzy’s opportunity to get us back for the notebook… I honestly believe we would have been forgiven if he had his precious notebook, but it never came back.
Awazzy declared, “Science 4, you will weeeeed! Where is the class prefect?”
Onukpa was asleep. (See, god of sleep).
Poto-Weezy, the assistant, stood up.
Awazzy addressed her, “This evening, all of you should be at my farm with sharp cutlasses by 4pm. You will check the roll. Do you understand?”
And with that he walked out of the class before we could flow him for him to change his mind.
4pm
So that’s how we ended up standing in Awazzy’s cassava farm at 4pm. It was a young farm, most of the cassava shoots still had soft green stems. By “we”, I mean 16 fearos from the class. 24 people legit didn’t fear. Heck, even the class prefects didn’t show up.
Now here’s the most interesting part… even Awazzy himself didn’t show up.
The man forgot that he had punished us. I was there thinking, “Yo! If you’re going to punish me, the least you could do is show up!” Once again, I thought it, I didn’t speak it… hard guy, hard guy, but I stood there for 30 minutes waiting for him to come and punish me. I’m suddenly so disappointed in my high school self.
After what seemed like forever, Obodai suggested, “Chale, let’s go back to the house.”
“Yeah”, I agreed, “This be waste of time. Like by now we set some gashit koraa.”
Out of frustration I swung my cutlass at the stem of one of the cassava plants, severing it right above the roots.
A look of horror crossed Obodai’s face. Ei, what had I just done? I picked up the stem, started digging and stuck it in the ground. It fell right over. Yawa! I dug deeper and stuck it in the ground once more. This time it stood, albeit a little bent over.
Good enough, I thought. I stood up, picked up my cutlass and turned to leave, but what I saw horrified me… here were Science 4 people cutting down the man’s cassava!
“What are you guys doing?!”, I yelled.
One guy, Marvin, replied, “Abi we dey weed?”
“You dey weed?! You dey weed?!!!”, I asked, shocked. Was he joking or he was serious?
“Yeah”, he replied, rather genuinely. He looked at me like I was over-reacting.
It suddenly hit me… this dadaba boy didn’t know what a cassava plant looked like.
“That’s cassava”, I explained. Everyone froze. T
hen Climax broke out laughing, “Marvin do yawa!”
“But you cut some”, I retorted.
“E no be you you start?”, he asked me. Ouch. “Besides, I know say e be cassava, I just figure say we all dey mafia Awazzy sake of he waste wonna time”, he shrugged. Pure evil, that boy.
What happened next is proof that high school is the best place to learn loyalty… we swore ourselves to secrecy and ran out of that farm like we were fleeing fornication.
A Fitting End?
A lot of us learnt something that day, and hopefully, you have too. I learnt that being a fearo would get me nowhere; I learnt that some of my classmates were pure evil; and I learnt that dadaba people can’t identify cassava.
I think Awazzy also learnt something: that he’s not a hard guy after all (see who’s talking)… he handed us over to the sanctions prefect, Boti — one mean dude — and we got the punishment we deserved. By the way, when Boti punishes a class, no one can escape. We weeded for real that time, from Onukpa to to the least of us.
But in all of this, I guess I was just grateful that Akua didn’t see me weeding.