Chemistry, Prep and Other ‘Dates’
If you must know, things were really… ermmm… nice, between Akua and me; lots of laughter and nice conversations.
She started prepping in Science 4 on Sundays so I could help her with Integrated Science Chemistry. Every Sunday, we’d join our desks, I’d sit on the left, she’d sit on my right, and we’d have a chemistry textbook in the middle; you could say “there was chemistry between us”.
And them dimplesssss 
. Every time she understood a new concept, her face would light up, and as her lips curled upwards into a smile, I would see my reward at the corners of her mouth. #sighhhh
I hate Chemistry with a passion, but not that term. That term, I almost loved chemistry. 
It was also nice to be able to pull Obodai and Emefa into some of the fun. They were actually getting along really well. Nothing official, but they were getting kind of close. We would all sit together during entertainment, especially on movie nights. One of our favourites was “2012”, the end-of-the-world movie that predicted we would all die by 2012. 
So yeah, that’s pretty much an Akua update.
A Little Drama for your Trouble
After Visiting
The most dramatic thing that had happened to me since the World cup happened the next Monday. The day after visiting is a bad day for squatter curators, those who clean the shanks, the potties. After the hell-fire mix of visiting meals… wait, you’re not eating, are you? I think I should avoid details.
But you get the point, you did not want to be a squatter curator the day after visiting.
Boys would show up and spoil there. In fact, after school, on those days, there would always be a line of people waiting to use the squatters, because as soon as the door of the house was opened, everybody who had been holding things in for dear life would race to make their ‘deposit’.
On that fateful Monday, I was the last person to make it to the only squatter left. Right behind me was Armani, a B-Dorm senior. I entered the stall, pulled down my shorts and sat. I had forgotten to lock the door.
Before I could give the required ‘push’, the door was flung open, and a strong hand grabbed my arm and threw me out of the stall half-naked. As it turned out, Armani needed to go much more badly than I needed to.
I could have complained… I should have complained… but he was bigger than me… and he locked the door. I’ve never made that mistake again. Lock your doors, people, lock your doors.
Other things happened, just that I was not involved. Let’s see what I can remember. Alright, I’ll throw around some names as if you know them. It’s the events that matter, after all.
Layers Vs Supra
There was a ‘fight’ between Layers and Supra. I think they are both Tema boys. In fact, Layers deserves his own episode, honestly.
I can’t say who won, because the fight didn’t actually happen. I remember Layers picked a stone, then Supra picked another stone because, in his words, “stones are free”, and then they kinda danced around each other for forty-five seconds hoping someone would separate them before it became obvious they were both not as hard as they were acting.
Well, Elorm, the assistant house prefect, passed by, and they dropped their act… and their stones.
So yeah, they owe us a fight, ‘cos nobody was going to stop them. 
What else? What else?
The Fade-Out (No be Jordor?)
Oh yeah, so Jordor gave Solo a haircut with a shaving stick. The details are fuzzy, but Solo wanted a fade, Jordor said he could do it, and Solo entrusted his head to Jordor. Apaa Dede would have been a better option.
Fast forward, Solo had his fade, and he actually thought he looked fly. I promise you, he was proud of himself.
When Eben, the house prefect, saw him, he half-screamed — out of actual worry — “Herh, young man, who did this to you?!”
His initial impression was that someone had pranked the boy and shaved his hair in his sleep; we were very close to Akpakus after all. It made no sense to him that anyone would actually want to look like he had been attacked by a lawnmower.
What was Solo’s response? In his thick Ewe accent, “Ehnn, e no be Jordor? Me I tell am say I want shape wey e come tear me fade-out.”
If you don’t understand pidgin, I’m sorry. I won’t bother translating. It’s not funny in proper English. The mere idea that this was the result of a voluntary action tickled Eben so much that he forgot to punish them. At least, until the next day.
Sometimes I believed he’d rather die than let an offence go.
The Matter at Hand – Hala Week
I think I’ve mentioned Hala Week before. Maybe I didn’t explain what it is.
If by some miracle of dadaba-ness you don’t know what it is, it’s typically the last week of school before vacation, or any period in school where provisions and money are in short supply.
Anyway, now, here we were at the end of another term, and as usual, Hala Week was upon us. Our heads were full of knowledge, but our chopboxes were empty. Some people had cash, but try eating a twenty cedi note after studying till midnight. Our boxes were so empty, they stopped locking the chop box rooms.
It was so bad, I saw some Guggisberg boys looking for gari in Aggrey House. That’s like a Kardashian looking for gΙbΙ at the Legon Night Market. It’s serious.
In my own box, I had only a handful of cornflakes, another handful of gari and the laaaaast of my chocolate spread. No money.
One of those nights, moved by hunger, I just mixed the cornflakes with the chocolate spread and made myself eat it. Please, don’t ask. All that was left was my last gari.
What a lot of people don’t know is the brain accounts for just 2% of the body’s weight, but uses 20% of the body’s energy. If you’re going to make somebody study, FEED THEM!
The day before our last paper, I was so hungry I didn’t know what to do with myself. Sounds funny now, but my life was hanging in the balance, chale.
I went to Gbewee. “Chale, Gbewee, adey hong oo.”
He laughed very hard as he opened his empty chop box to prove to me, “Adey hong pass you sef.”
I thought all hope was lost, but Diaby made an offer, “I get shito, you get gari?”
Music to my ears! It was time for a collaboration.
I ran downstairs to my chop box and brought my last gari upstairs. All the while I was singing a sweet tune in my head. I felt like that widow Elijah met. The one who was going to cook her last meal and die, only to have that life-changing encounter. I was going to meet my life-changing shito; I was going toβ
I stopped.
I felt deceived. I had arrived at the C-Dorm inner chamber, and sitting in front of Diaby was a shito jar, but it was filled with shito oil, not actual shito. Herh! No be small fraud! But a beggar has no choice.
As we mixed the gari with the shito, I remember thinking to myself “Is this what I have been reduced to?” 
Like, heeeeerh!
Nevertheless, I salivated as we mixed the gari with that oil. Hunger don’t know bougie.
I remember the relief as the course aggregates travelled down my throat and settled into my empty stomach. Somehow, the oil had retained enough of the shito taste to be worth it. Or maybe I was just that hungry.
The meal, if you can call it that, was so scanty, I knew hunger would ambush me in the next thirty minutes, so I made a counter move. I went back to the common room, packed my books, and went to bed. No amount of mathematics was going to save me from night-time peckishness if I stayed up late.
As I jumped, literally jumped, into my top bunk bed, I felt some gratitude because my tummy had stopped rumbling. In less than 48 hours I would be home for a two-month vacation. And we would come back to start form 2. Semi-seniors in our own right. Things weren’t so bad after all.
I think that gashit gave me a sore throat, but at least I had survived form 1. I smiled at the thought as I drifted off into sleep like a baby… which is a bad analogy when you realise that babies wake up to cry every couple of hours. But you get the picture. 
Awesomeπ