Closing Assembly
“… and so I officially declare the first term of the 2009/2010 academic year duly closed!”
The declaration of the assistant headmistress was met with shouts of unmistakeable joy. Our first term in Motown had not been easy, especially the last few days, what the seniors called Akpakus week.
Akpakus week
The last few days of every term were exciting, to say the least. There was always a sense of ‘confused joy’. Joy because you could sense that vacation was just around the corner, but also confusion because standing between you and your promised land was a Red Sea of examinations. You could find the boys making plans for vacation chilling one minute, and the next minute they would be discussing the boiling point of ethanol.
No matter how excited we were about going home, we knew we had to deal with the exams first. Atico was also lurking around the corner.
Fortunately for me, after my bout with chemistry, the rest of the papers had behaved themselves. In fact, I was on my way to making straight A’s that term. I was having the academic time of my life.
Not everyone had the same story. Truth be told, a lot of students really got frustrated during the exam period. To alleviate their frustrations, it was common during the last week of school — Akpakus Week — to hear of all manner of pranks being played.
These pranks ranged from mild to serious, and the culmination was on the last night of school, Akpakus Night — after everyone had written their papers and was packing to leave school the next morning. But let me not get ahead of myself.
Mono-brow Alphie and the rest
Poor Alphie was a Livingstone (Livi) House boy in Science 4 whose story is recorded in the Akpakus hall of fame.
Once upon a siesta, during Akpakus week, Alphie woke up suddenly because he felt a strange sensation on his face. It turned out to be powder.
Talcum powder on the face was quite normal during Akpakus. He dusted off the powder and walked to the bathroom to wash his face. When he got back to his dorm, Edem, another science 4 Livi boy, was looking at him funny.
“What e do your face?” Edem inquired. “Oh, somebro pour powder put my top as I dey bed”, Alphie replied, “Why, I no clean am better?”.
Edem was not convinced. “Nah, guy, what e do your face?”
Alphie still didn’t get it, so Edem pulled out a mirror for him to see.
Alphie screamed like a little girl, waking the whole dorm.
Turns out that the talcum powder was not talcum powder, it was a type of shaving powder that made your hair fall off. So when he washed off the powder, along came his right eyebrow.
Yep. I’d scream too.
If it was any consolation, Alphie was not the only Livi boy to lose facial hair that day. Prosper, a Science 3 boy, lost both eyebrows that day. It was a sad day for eyebrows, but darn it they looked hilarious.
The funny thing is, one eyebrow looked weirder than no eyebrows at all, so Alphie looked a lot funnier than Prosper.
It wasn’t hard to find the culprit. It was a senior they called Zuma — it’s kinda hard to pull off a hall of fame prank and shut up about it. His efforts earned him deboardinization, of course, but for what it’s worth, he seemed to enjoy becoming a day-student.
So, like everyone else, I got to prep, took one look at Alphie’s face and burst into a fit of laughter.
In all of this, there was a lesson to be learnt: during Akpakus, you better sleep with one eye open.
Sleeping With One Eye Open
(I actually saw someone do this once. It’s real creepy.)
There was a simple golden rule during Akpakus: Everything is legal, just DON’T GET CAUGHT. The implications were serious: everyone was fair game.
The story is told of one boy in Guggisberg house who woke up to find himself on his bed in the bathroom surrounded by twelve hooded men holding candles and chanting. The dude almost had a heart attack! He quoted every scripture he knew, and threw in “No woman no cry” for good measure. Imagine his surprise when they turned on the lights and he realised it was his dorm mates pranking him.
For those who didn’t have time for such sophisticated pranks, they worked with four main tools: water, powder, toothpaste and belts.
I’ve already explained how powder was used to dust people in their sleep; a slightly more wicked variation was the use of toothpaste to line the eyebrows. This happened to one Guggisberg boy called Ekome. Ekome woke up one morning and innocently rubbed his face with his palm, only to temporarily blind himself with minty Pepsodent toothpaste expertly laid on his eyebrows. Pepsodent in your eyes is no way to start your morning, especially when your dorm is upstairs and the taps are downstairs.
In Aggrey House, Umar, the sanctions monitor, was baptized in bed by a group of juniors. Of course, they were not dumb enough to do it directly; they placed a gallon of water on the empty bed planks above him while he slept, and then they went outside, passed a stick through the window, and tipped the gallon of water on top of him.
How I wish I could have done the same thing to the house prefect, but chale, like I keep saying, I was foolish, not an idiot.
The real go-getters were the belt wielders. These guys had personal vendettas to settle.
Me, I just used to tie people’s legs to their beds during Akpakus, nothing serious oo. But the guys who went about lashing people in their sleep… look at their nicknames: Obstinate, Immortal, Rokoto, Salageezy. I was not interested in their game. But to be safe, I began to go to bed with a belt in my hand.
One eye open chale, one eye open.
The bottom line is, Akpakus week was not safe. So when the end of the term was declared I felt I had achieved something. I could actually beat my chest and be proud. I’d survived one term in Motown! I’d survived an entire Akpakus week with both eyebrows! Now only one thing stood between me and my vacation: Akpakus Night.
Akpakus Night
Akpakus night was a simple game of “you snooze, you lose”. We did everything to stay awake, even playing football as late as 1 AM, but you can’t cheat Nature. There was actually an Aggrey boy called Nature, and you couldn’t cheat him either.
At 4:00 AM, so close to sunrise, and victory, my eyelids gave up on me and closed.
I woke up with a start at 5 AM and instinctively my hand moved to wipe my face.
Wait! I remembered Ekome. I touched my eyebrows, and just as I suspected, Pepsodent.
“Haha”, I laughed, “disaster avoided”.
I smiled and stood up, only to fall flat on my face. My leg had been tied to the bed. Karma really is a “beach”.
But at least I got to keep my eyebrows.
The Next Morning
There was an upside a few hours later, while heading to the dining hall for our parting breakfast.
“Kodzooooooo!” That sing-song voice that made my heart tingle.
“Akuaaaaaaaa!”, I sang right back, as I turned around to face the source of the voice. “You were allowed to cross over?”
“Yes oo”, she giggled, “Can anybody stop me?” Actually, everyone could cross over from the east to the west on vacation day. There were no functioning rules at this time.
Akua had a funny look in her eyes. “You forgot something.”
Ah? Me? Forgot something? I couldn’t think of anything, and the confusion showed on my face.
“My number, silly!”, she laughed, holding out a folded piece of paper.
I froze.
You see, I had a little secret. I’d never taken a gir’l’s number before.
There’s a perfectly good explanation: I did not own a phone. I simply did not know what to do with a girl’s number.
How was I supposed to call her? Was I even supposed t call her that night or wait till she missed me? Whose phone would I use?
“Wh-Wh-What network?” I know, lame right?
“MTN”, she responded with a quizzical look, “Why? What network do you use?”
“Oh, you’ll see”, I replied. I quickly took the piece of paper before she changed her mind.
“Kodzo, you’re weird”, she said playfully, “you’re lucky you’re cute”.
Herh, me tri mu yɛɛ me dɛ at once. Kyerɛ sɛ me yɛ cute boy. (Oh, yeah, not everyone speak Twi: I became light-headed because she called me cute.)
“I have to get going”, she said, walking away backwards and waving at close range. Typical Motown girl. Then as if on second thought, she came back and gave me a hug. This time I didn’t black out — I was a big boy.
She smelled like flowers 😉.
“Call me oo”, she prodded as she let me go.
“I will”, I responded. I didn’t know how, but I would find a way…
