The Mirror of Africa

When you take a negative energy and multiply it with another negative energy, you get positive energy. The power of creation.

You can break and submit to whatever is holding you.

Or you can take that pain or failure , combine it with the refusal to submit, and let the collision create something new.Pain or failure is negative. Refusal to submit is also negative. When you combine two or more negatives, they collide and what emerges is success.

The year was 2018 when i joined Agoro Sare High School.I was lucky to be admitted to form 1 violet located in first floor.My first time in a tall building which gave mixture of excitement and height freight.We bonded well in a class of seventy four students.We had bigger ambitions like leading in class rankings but reality kicked in when we began doing exams.

During our first exam we had managed position six of eight . Not bad at all. During the first Parents day everything was okay as we made promises to work even harder next time. The following exam we took position seven. The Same in end term exam. During our second term nothing changed we became either number seven or eight. We totally blew it and as having largest population compared to others we gave up on ever climbing up. But that was a lie because the leading stream was the second largest with seventy students. Because of performance we had only class governor of all available leadership posts.

Every Friday night was a cleaning competition between classes and dorms. with rewards on Mondays.Our stream gave up on cleanness too.Most of the time we would not finish mopping or we would just sweep.Those Friday nights while other classes were cleaning,we would host concerts for genge tone and layer the seats on top of the other --with the back sits even higher to the ceiling. Notorious students from other streams would join too. We became what all other streams where saying we were. A few indiscipline cases sprang up like any other streams but it damaged our image severely given we were on the radar. We always had unity even in bad deeds.I recall this one time our class member was beaten by form 2 purple stream members in the field when they accused him for stealing his own crocks.In return a some of us paid their class a boss visit to pass our kind greatings--they couldn’t stand the boss aura as expected.

While in form one our Geography madam teacher came in unannounced around 8:15pm after break to cover syllabus.It was self study time but we would mix in sleeping too.She announced that if someone was unwilling to attend her class then he should leave for the library. The first column was clear in seconds,the second column was almost empty when she rushed to close the door.Over time some teachers began seeking replacement with new teachers or teaching practice undergraduates. Undergraduate teachers never had easy time.Each had their weaknesses like luo origin biology teacher who had problem with ‘s’.Others had dry jokes so someone would hit wall so we could laugh.It was a common thing in other streams too when a joke hits a wall but we want to laugh.

Some celebrities had to be banned from using a section students toilet because they a nap on the grass after taking a dump. I guess the camera’s weren’t scary. We had 360 deg camera in class but sharp boys made it blur when zooming by smearing body oil. I would always sleep 10:01 like a form one since i preferred reading at dawn. During dawns the last person to enter would close the door and place spoon under the door so that it can produce sound when a teacher on patrol pushes the door ..Then almost everybody would sleep except for around ten people who preferred dawn reading.Heavy sleepers were not lucky since they couldn’t even remember being slapped. I wouldn’t say everybody who slept had extended read because i once tried extending but people were just timing soaked indomies to get ready before leaving to spice it up i the dormitories. It was fun because i tried that too. I was no saint too even just three weeks after being admitted.I never liked doing dormitory cleanness when it was my turn until one Tuesday i was called in front during a dormitory meeting.I was this little tiny boy so i bumped my head of some huge belly.It was the boarding master who laughed at me and made a joke he’ll put me in an envelop and send me back home. Yeah it was kinda hard tackle there.I had never missed entertainment so i had this XL basket ball vest that left my chest and sideways open. It was fun until one i passed by the school’s principal who took it from me .

Like every other stream we had problems during church service from dressing code to sleeping. Class meetings on Thursdays were all about stolen spoons , people leaving early for top layer, pinched breads from lockers , unity when it comes sharing food spices and the greatest strategy of all time was taking the front direct line of site in the Hall for Saturday entertainment after form fours left.In form one alone we changed class governors almost every Thursday. We had over eleven demoted or resigned governors with one ruling for two hours before resigning.We later settled on two until form four because they understood the rule of the streets.

We became totally okay with being position eleven even though the best in our class always got a spot in position two or one overally .Many teachers left such that in form two we kinda had new faces most from teaching practice. Parents began skipping parent and visiting days. Only a few would come and they were bitter.Every exam release we would sit at the back waiting for the class position results.We would bury our heads down behind other chairs and cover them with sweaters others would sleep the whole session.Madam Leah would begin announcing class positions” At position 8 is ..”then the whole school would shout “form two violet” . The results confirmed it and we would lift our heads and join the laughter as we defend saying.” Top ten... top ten ”.

This happened for the whole form two but something interesting happened when we joined form three. We were received by a different class teacher.That’s when we knew we had messed up big time. The new class teacher was more of a father figure given the age.He joined the class meeting on Thursday. We don’t know what happened but from the few soft spoken words he gave us every Thursday class meetings ,something changed in us not any that we knew of.We began taking our studies seriously. We would engage our teachers after receiving our papers. We noticed that some of our answers were right but still marked as X yet other streams might have received a tick.We complained to our chemistry teacher but he said don’t worry maybe it’s part of the school moderation to help you give more refined answers and if a teacher’s attitude then no problem as we would be doing external exams and marking will be standardized.

We had always noticed this before in previous classes but we did not care so much. We were already in form three and that meant future exams were to be external joint exams with other schools. The first entry exam was internal we were still number 7. Everything changed on the day of releasing the results of first joint midterm exam.As usual we sat at the back covering our heads waiting for our position while others slept. But hey the rival streams shouted as usual but they were wrong, The position had expired ,We could not believe it and so we became anxious while the sleepy heads became wide awake ,the sixth position was not ours until it remained top three positions. We were already pumped hoping we could be number one so we get hold of that prodigal juice and biscuits. But the hopes were cut short as we were named number three.

Hey we tried and we were the talk of the school with rivals saying we cheated on the exam and that we would slide back to our normal position, We proved them wrong as the remaining exams including form four we had more of position 1 as default. We had changed our ranking in cleanness too.We took inter-classes competition serious such that during one closing night we had triple blessing as we had to eat loafs and juices for becoming position one in academics, position one in both football and volley ball.Our parents began coming to school more often, we would have sudden breakfast breads sponsored by parents. We had many leadership positions including the third most powerful in charge of cleanness. We had our parent’s made them proud.

When the final results for graduating from high school were out. No one expected the results that came out.Not only did we lead overaly but we also emerged as the only class with the highest average of above 9 at approximately 9.07. Much higher than other streams at below 8.89 and the school’s average too which was 8.9 . Our stream was also the only one that to have a 99.9 % pass to university in exception of one student who got a C-.

As Africans this real life story relates to us in many aspects the only difference is taking that one step towards change.Refusing to let our current situation be the future.