Part 5 - The Journey in

The journey home was slow that day as I pulled my brother along. I couldn't wait to peel off my school uniform as it was sticking to my back. The mixture of sweat and blood was itching like mad but too painful to scratch. My brother commiserated with me and showed me his "war wounds" from the day before. I was not the only one fighting a battle it would seem. On reaching home I rushed to my room to remove the offending dress, quickly showered myself and applied ointment to the wounds I could reach and wanted no one to see. I slept fitfully that night. The pain was intense, a physical and mental reminder of my unfortunate circumstances where school was concerned.

I so badly wanted to be back in England where things were cool, safe, orderly and predictable. I planned how I would run away to the airport, smuggle myself through the baggage carousel and onto the plane when no one was looking and on arrival put myself up for adoption. Surely there were lots of childless couples out there looking for a well behaved little mixed race girl who could help around the house in exchange for a quiet place to just be?. I awoke to the delicious smell of fried eggs and plantain and wondered if I could smuggle onto the plane various Nigerian food items as I could not go back to eating baked beans and sausages. At the least I would need to carry a big bag of dried pepper.

My mother (pictured above) had breakfast waiting downstairs. This was an occasional treat when she had the day off from her work as a secretary . My brother blurted out are you better now? as I sat gingerly on my chair. Whats the matter? my mother asked. My brother, between swallowing bits of egg said, they beat her black and blue. My mother eyes filled with tears as she removed my uniform and saw the wounds I had been given. She had a tendency to get very emotional and would now link my unfortunate episode with a lot of other injustices in the past and would go off on a diatribe that would inevitably affect the whole household. This was something I always wanted to avoid as it drove my father first to distraction and then drove him our way as inevitably it would become our fault.

My father was from the tribe called suck it in and take it like a man (just on the outskirts of Asaba), and we, my brothers and I, never wanted him to see us weak. After a lengthy discussion my mother decided no one was going to school that day. She professionally bathed, disinfected and bandaged my wounds bringing all her qualified nursing skills into play, sent my brothers off to play and put me to bed. I awoke to shouts a few hours later. Not surprisingly an argument had ensued over my treatment. My father had popped back for lunch and as my mother unleashed the full weight of her unhappiness at my treatment it was doubtful my father would be going back to work. I eased myself out of bed with a mixture of fear and unhappiness as I did not want to be the topic of this argument and did not want my father looking at me with disappointment in his eyes as I was not living up to his Nigerian dream. Obviously I must have done something wrong to have gotten myself flogged. As far as he was concerned that was the only reason children got flogged in school. He insisted I went back to school, that this was how thing were done over here and I would be toughened up. "Over my dead body" my mother screamed. She had sent me to school for an education not physical and psychological damage. As they took the argument into the bedroom I dressed and made a dash for the back door determining to spend the rest of the day outside keeping watch and hoping my father would return to work. His car pulled out a couple of hours later and i headed back to the safety of my room. On hearing my return my mother informed me my Catholic schooling was over. Amen. Hallelujah.

The Christmas season came and with it drier air and expectations. Lagos felt lighter, with less traffic as many of its populace would travel out to their various states to spend Christmas with their extended family. We woke up on Xmas day to our presents ,two huge boxes of books to be shared amongst us. I was beside myself with joy as I could never have, or get enough books to read. I was constantly saving my coke and gala money to buy them and then berating myself for reading them too fast. There wasn't that much on TV to interest me except the Village Headmaster with Amebo being my favorite character as she was forever meddling in other peoples business. This pile of books in front of me seemed to be unending.

As I emptied the box onto the floor a box set caught my eye. It had a picture of an eagle soaring into a big cloudless sky and two pages into the book I was sold out I had found the holy grail.........

Part 4 The Journey in

The rainy season routinely caused chaos in Lagos,and there was never a definite guarantee of getting to school on time through the waterlogged roads. We would leave earlier and earlier with me rushing my brother out of the house in the pouring rain. We would wade to the bus-stop barefoot weaving in and out and out of the go-slow traffic. We took our leather Bata shoes off to protect them from the murky waters. The fear of the cane was always at the forefront of my mind during our morning journeys. I would remember the feel of it on my hands, the big red welts would throb for most of the day and would disable me from writing thus incurring more wrath from my teacher. It was a vicious circle. She routinely flogged me on my left hand - the one she knew I used to write with. She thought the use of the left hand was inappropriate for writing and was probably hoping the routine caning might change me around Needless to say it didn't work.

I tried my hardest to fit in but was still, after a couple of years, like a fish out of water unused to the roughness of the school education I was receiving.I was confronted by prejudices based on my racial identity on a daily basis by my teacher in the classroom who would routinely laugh and make fun of my accent, telling me and everyone else I looked like a witch or a mammy water if my hair was slightly out of place.This not only had an effect on me but the children around me who for fear of the teachers wrath would not associate with me. As I began to disappear into myself my grades slipped and she sometimes failed me for the hell of it, which I only discovered when my mother appalled at a D I got for history (one of my favorite subjects) read the paper then made an appointment with the head of the school who marked it to a B and could offer no explanation for the failing mark.

Inevitably, I began to truant off school now and again dropping my brother off and wandering around Tejuosho Market merging myself into the vibrant chaos and wandering in and out of a myriad of colourful shops selling fabric, shoes, bags, imported clothes and jewellery enjoying my own safe company till the school day ended. Nevertheless I managed to pass my common entrance exams and moved into the secondary school which was housed in the same compound.

It was a Monday morning school assembly and inspection day. I came looking forward to my literature first period lesson. I adored literature as it was a slice of heaven reading and discussing books by authors such as Chinua Achebe who brought West Africa alive to me with his book Things Fall Apart. My former class teacher who by some bad hand of fate happened to be on inspection duty that day ordered me to stop, looked me up and down, head to toe and proceeded to tell me I was wearing false eyelashes and should report to the teacher's staff room where she would trim them for me, and oh yes my hair was a mess. Being a tomboy, only out of trousers when I'm in my school uniform I hadn't a clue what false eyelashes were.The morning was spent kneeling on the floor in front of the staff room my face red with embarrassment, pain from the concrete floor and the shame of watching my classmates walking past whispering words I could not hear but could well imagine. At midday my former class teacher showed up with a pair of scissors and attempted to hold me down so she could trim my eyelashes. I could not be still as I thought she would take my eye out .

After we danced outside the staff room to the amusement of students and staff she decided to cane me instead. Relief flooded through me briefly as the welts would heal but one could not buy another eye. As I stood with my face against the wall she chose to flog me on my back and shoulders. It seemed like an eternity, the pain was intense not just physically but mentally as through my tears of pain I wondered why this woman wanted to break me. She seemed appeased after the flogging and had a strangely relaxed look on her face. My eyelashes were forgotten. I vowed that day she would never lay hands on me again.

How do they do that?

Crossing the road this morning I was surprised by the lack of interest shown on people’s faces as a half naked man, totally out of his head, struggled up the hill of our somewhat genteel neighbourhood. There was half a loo roll hanging out the back of his dirty blue jeans and trailing along the pavement behind him. He spat out obscenities with every step to the people who passed by pretending not to see him, or perhaps just oblivious to him, as if he did not exist in their world. For all intents and purposes he was invisible.

What is it that does not make the English stop and stare like Africans do when presented with these sorts of scenarios? I mean all you have to do is drop a coin in Lagos and a crowd gathers to watch you pick it up!!

Are they too comfortable in the security of their own routine? Have they seen it all before? Are they just blotting it out? I am puzzled. Me, I stopped to watch. As the police drove up a few minutes later to wisk him away I wonderd who phoned them, must be one of the twitching curtains.

Part 3 TheJourney in

I awoke one rainy day to the screams of my mother,there was excrement flowing out of the toilet through the hall and into the living room of her "English Cottage".It was now completely apparent after living there a few weeks that the landlord had contravened every building regulation there was,and the flat was a nicely painted shack.Every time the neighbours flushed their toilet above us,our toilet downstairs overflowed,the smell seeped into the house and buried itself into the walls.This happened on a twice daily basis,my mother begged and pleaded even sending up copious amounts of" waterboy"this was a product used during times of water shortage to hide and deodorise the mess for want of a better word in the toilet,to stop the neighbour flushing her loo until it was fixed .To no avail she continued to flush.My mother was semi-broken at the end of the week, insane amounts of mopping with Izal and bleach had taken its toll on her and she took to her bed with a fever.My dad finally went to see the lady upstairs I snuck up behind him intent on hearing what was said,I heard a few indiscernible words and as I remember she never flushed her toilet again till the piping was fixed.I always wondered what my father had said to her in a few seconds that was so different to what my mother had said to her over the past week.

I was placed in a school called St Saviours but early on found it hard to fit in ,being light skinned made me stand out,I had to work harder, listen harder and was expected to be better in some way,by virtue of skin colour and accent.I had become the latest English mascot for the school and was routinely pointed out when prospective parents came looking for a place for their kids,"Look that's Mandy,our latest child from London."I got a bit fed up with minding my "P's and Q's" and persuaded my mum into transferring me into a more "Nigerian" school.This backfired with my father transferring me into a catholic girls school in Yaba,back to my catholic roots.I had always gone to catholic schools in England and the horrors of my knuckles being rapped on by a ruler came back to me,although this enabled me to read at the age of four which bought me immense pleasure.I prayed these particular nuns were not the violent type,how wrong was I. If you were late for school you were caned.If your uniform was dishevelled,you were caned.If your plaits were not three days fresh,you were caned.My hair had a life of its own so i was routinely caned on that point.

One morning after many screams of "Daddy!Hurry up, if we are late they will beat us oh!"He decided to introduce us to public transport,thus my adventures dragging my five year old brother on to Danfo's and Molues began,and i loved every minute of it.I couldn't quite comprehend how the twelve people waiting at the make-shift bus stop were going to fit into the little yellow Danfo that pulled up,the conductor calling "Yaba!Yaba!" as they screeched to a halt, almost running over the local vulcaniser,always on the prowl for any punctured vehicles.As my father waved us off,my travel route and N3.00 in hand we squeezed into the ramshackle bus,I noticed how intimate the seating was and made myself as small as possible putting my brother on my lap,with the conductor hanging on the outside for dear life,all twelve of us began our journey.Whatever fearful insecurities inside of me faded as I became part of the fabric of humanity on that ride.All of us as one,focused on getting where we needed to go. As the weeks went by I became adept at running after moving buses clambering on at times with my brother on my back,his legs much smaller than mine,sometimes could not meet up to my Olympic runner standards.Before and after school these buses became our second form of education,we were ministered to by various preachers who hopped on and off the buses with mixed messages salvation and freedom in Christ,to eternal damnation for sin.In tandem we observed the principles of pick-pocketing,begging,haggling and the mechanics of fixing a broken fan belt with cheap black electrical tape,majority of the buses we rode in were routinely just patched together,we endured many a ride,observing the road beneath us through a gaping hole. We learned how to be totally independent and street wise,my brother picking up pidgin English and Yoruba well before me and using it to his advantage when haggling over roasted corn,boli or fried akara at our midway palmgrove bus stop.The women so impressed by his skills routinely dashed him extra snacks,whilst pinching his cheeks calling him "fine boy."