Episode 2

JOURNALS OF A NIGERIAN UNDERGRADUATE

ACCOMMODATION.

If you’ve schooled in a Nigerian University, then accommodation problems wouldn’t be new to you. Men Federal/State schools are so overpopulated while private schools...so gay. Gaining admission to my school was hard enough, then you get in to find out your gateman at home has better living conditions than you. Being a freshman/jambite as we would call it, you are entitled to free accomodation but as good as that sounds, you’re being set up for the worse.

There are more dangers to this than benefits. Fine you are saved from the hassle of running around for accommodation but your also fixed in a room with total strangers. I mean you are either with a religious fanatic, a psycho cultist killer, village idiot, aristrocrat wannabe or a regular nice guy. Well I had the aristrocrat wannabe and regular nice guy but they came in later that first semester. Unfortunately I started the semester with the religious fanatic and psycho village idiot blended in one person. Infact Monday should have his name in the Warri idiots Hall of Fame. This Warri boy succeeded in giving me a bad impression of all Warri people. I know this is wrong but Monday did this to me not you so blame him.

I met  this psycho the moment I stepped into my room. As my roommate, he looked so calm like he couldn’t harm the air a fly would soar through but this guy would send the human race into extinction to get his way. I mean I walk into this room and not even the bulb was working. This dude has been living here for three days and had done nothing about the place. I smelt doom right there and then. So I fixed up the place with my money and this ungreatful peasant doesnt thank me but starts lecturing me on how I’d have decorated the place.

 Everything was wrong with this guy, there was no good etiquette in him, I mean I think this dude was allergic to the term. For instance one day I left my keys inside and took a stroll to come back and see the door locked and I’m in boxer shorts and Tshirt. I now take a bike/okada to find him. A normal human being would say oh sorry men here’s my key. He on the other hand stutters and tells me w w w why you no carry your key? No no no do am again. Son of a Bitch! if not for me you wouldn’t even have a key. This nuisance reads aloud to himself. I mean seriously. When he’s reading at night you hear him yelling at the top of his voice and after each sentence he yells YES! Like that term confirms that he has comprehended the sentence. Let me break this down for you. Imagine reading this passage aloud at night to yourself and after each sentence you yell YES! Imagine me waking up at night hearing “Double coincidence of want... YES!” (can you believe someone with this brain is a second year economics major). This psycho comes in at night one day and decides he wants to cook at 1a.m. I mean as if that wasn’t bad enough he decides he’ll cook there in the room. I said Dude whats this? its late and why would you want to cook in the room? The fool answers, I I I no go chop again? That was it. We argued about it all night till he finished cooking. Little did I know this was his cool and calm self. I was in for more psycho drama.

As days passed I found out Monday passes through a cycle in every semester. It starts with the Calm Stingy Person I’ve just talked about. The second is the Stingy Religious Fanatic. The last stage comes when we are close to the end of the semester and people become dry of supplies, he now becomes the stingy psycho vulture vermin hyena behaving selfish cockroach. The latter, trust me you dont want to experience.

Going into the Stingy religious fanatic part, Monday would become born again at the middle of the semester. His Deeper life brothers would come every early morning to knock on our door for him to follow up with their early morning devotion. Monday would drag himself out with sleep in his eyes. Did I mention this dude was also allergic to water. I mean taking his bath once a week was good for him so bathing in the morning wasn’t a problem. I didn’t buy the whole born again facade. This fool actually preached to me one day. I laughed my arse off. You know the type of laughter that makes it obvious you’re spiting the person, I kicked it up a few notches. He then told me hell is real and I told him he should send me a postcard whenever he gets there.

Soon as Monday ran out of money and his brothers won’t help him out he discarded all of them. They (his brothers) came and knocked one early morning for their normal devotion when Monday  just had sex the previous day. Monday stood up, opened the door, and yelled at his brothers,  (stuttering)”A-aaaaaaabiii person no fit sleep again? Mmmak make una leave me make I sleep” . He slams the door behind him and with no remorse goes to sleep. That was the last I saw of his brothers, at least for that semester.

Towards the end of the semester, we had the aristrocat wannabe Charles, and the nice guy Kene Join us. Then the last monstrous stage of Monday comes out.

Cont next edition.                 

Ekeocha Nnaemeka