Contaminated Bread

There comes a time in everybody’s life where you have to grow up and I had been dying to grow up for a long time. My older sisters where already in boarding school and the stories made it sound super interesting plus, I could not wait to have provision and Money all to my self and to me this was a super big deal because as I had said earlier in this blog, my parents NEVER gave me cash in fact my parents were the type to “help save you money” whenever an Uncle or aunt gave you money for Christmas.

Anyways as I was saying, this was the year 1995 I was in primary 5 either the second or third term cannot quite remember but I was feeling all grown up. This was “common entrance” year and I had been doing lessons and reading and generally getting into the vibe of writing exams all over the place. (Common entrance exams are the exams written to gain entry to secondary school usually written by primary school pupils meaning you’ re no longer going to be called a pupil but a student this was a BIG DEAL for me). So here I was going from school to school writing exams.

Now usually these entry exams were done in two phases first the written exam and then the interviews. In some schools, the interviews are panel like discussions(verbal discussions), in some schools the interviews are simply advanced written exams and in some schools the interviews are a mixture of both methods (In a particular school we were required to spend 3 days as boarding students). Anyways the point is that, this is a very important period in the life of primary school pupils in Nigeria and that was the stage I had found myself in at that time. It was as super important to the individual pupils as it was to the schools because this is when you discover if you are as intelligent as your school has been telling you or you are just a local champion (this is where the primary schools test their abilities against each other).

Now to be honest I wasn’t too bothered about passing I knew I was “well above average” in and out of my school because even at neighbourhood lessons where I met people from other schools I was not too shabby. I was bothered more about make the “cutoffs” these were the benchmarks set by the schools for ultimate entry these “cutoffs” depended on how many people passed the exams and the number of spaces available at the schools.  The cut off marks varied every year and could either be really high sometimes and so even if you passed you needed to make that cut off mark to get in the school of your choice.

Anyways so here I was at the interview for Command Secondary schools in my little school uniform (I think my parents chose Kaduna and Ibadan), the interview was to take place in the school located in the Army Barracks in Bori camp PH. This particular schools’ interview was a mixture of written tests and verbal discussions and because the interview would require facing a panel. it was going to take quite a while.

The initial plan was for my uncle to drop me off, go drop my mom at work and return to pick me up. On getting there, we discovered how long the process was gonna take; it was being done alphabetically and my surname began with an “O” so my mom decided that instead of my uncle waiting forever, he should drop her off at work and come pick me at a later time. Now, because we hadn’t been prepared to be at the venue that long, I had not brought any snack to eat so this meant I needed to get some food. As As was the usual custom, I expected my mom would ask my uncle to go get me some food from the house because giving me money wasn’t even in the equation, so you can imagine my shock when my mom brought out 20 whole Naira and gave me for food, I almost peed on myself.

I played it cool so that she wouldn’t see my excitement and change her mind. After they left…….. JESU!!! I was confused happiness wanted to kill me. A whole 20 Naira for just me?What? You gotta see my walking step …in that moment I felt like “wonder woman”. The new dilema! Of course I didn’t know what to buy, I had never bought myself anything before that day asides maybe sweets with some random 5o kobo or 1.00 Naira. As I walked up and down the food section area completely confused and not sure how to spend my money. I eventually saw one random woman selling bread and butter and decided her food looked safe enough ( I used to be a super picky person with food) And I bought one bread 1.50 Naira and butter and coke everything came to about 8.00 or 9.00 Naira cant remember.

Fast forward to evening I had done my interview, passed and was at home chilling when I felt the first pang, I thought it was just a random discomfort in my belly  but after a while I was full on constipated. I immediately matched to Daddy (he’s a Doctor) to complain. After questioning me severely, my dad came to the conclusion that I had eaten “contaminated bread” and then proceeded to scold me for eating outside the house (Not like I cared besides I had plans for my 11.00 Naira change). By the next morning, I was fine and would have moved on with my life but……………..

My wicked wicked elder sister sang a million types of “contaminated bread” songs to tease me. From reggae to disco to highlife …. it was a nightmare she wouldn’t stop singing and making me cry. Telling everybody that cared to listen how I went to Boricamp and ate contaminated bread. It was so painful.

Nemesis is REAL!!!! A few weeks later it caught up with her when she went back to boarding school and ate “contaminated spaghetti pie”  and the bad part was that in her own case she was bed ridden for 3 weeks ……BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Karma is a Bitch… heheheh!!

Happy Birthday to that my big Sis Abodaya…. I love you plenty through every fight and every contaminated food we have ever passed through I really Love you and wish you the Best.