#Throw back yesterday - Teachers' Day

I have had so many teachers who I learnt so many lessons from, teachers whose teachings and lessons still keeps me going. The teachers I never got the opportunity to say thank you to. I'm going to write about them and I believe that my appreciations gets to them any way they can.

MY TEACHERS AT THE ST. MATHIAS PRIMARY SCHOOL MARYLAND ENUGU.
Mrs Ucheagu:
A beautiful woman who believed strokes of canes could chase away laziness and foolishness in a child. Well, it did chase away a bit of my stubbornness.

Mrs Tina Enweluzor:
The woman who flogged me for not flogging a primary four student when I was still in primary one.
One woman who believed in me and treated me like her own child.
What I do not remember right now is if she had a child or children then.
The teacher who was not only my teacher and my school mother but also my fighter.

Miss Chekwube:
The teacher who made sure I changed my dirty and rough handwriting before I left Maryland Enugu state for Imo state.
She made sure I was never caught sitting on my own and she gave me a copy of the group picture we(she, my classmate and I) took before my departure.

MY TEACHERS AT ROYAL NURSERY & PRIMARY SCHOOL, ORJI, OWERRI.

To Mrs Akakem:
Mrs Akakem, our own school proprietress, who noticed how much a loner I was and tried to force me to mingle. She forced me to join the calisthenics every Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays and because of her, I would wear my uniform to school on most Mondays and Wednesday and Fridays instead of my P.E so I wouldn't participate in the exercise. I received strokes of canes from the senior students and Madam Pail at the gate but, that was much better than having to come out in front of people to dance.

To Aunty Chizo:
Aunty Chizo who always told me I was more brilliant than my classmates who took the first and second positions. The last time she told me, I took the sixteenth position and I went home that day thinking about what she told me even though I never understood until two years ago. I never told anyone about it until two years ago.

TO MY TEACHERS AT GIRLS'S SECONDARY SCHOOL IKENEGBU OWERRI.

To Mrs Okanu.
You know, each time I see a blue or red Volvo coming, I would stand and look/peep into the car when it has gotten closer to see if it is Mrs Okanu.
Mrs Okanu, a then fifty year old woman who looked twenty five. The woman who seeing how much a loner I was laid the foundation of my relationship with Saraphina Oparah and Ijezie Precious. Little did she know that I wasn't ready to get out of my own way.

To Mrs Ejifugha a.k.a Mrs Malama - May her soul find rest with the Lord. AMEN.
A teacher who the students feared more than all the teachers in Ikenegbu Girls' secondary school. She was very beautiful and it was rumored that the Nollywood actress by name, Ngozi Ezeonu was her younger sister.
I was scared when we were told she was going to be our form-teacher in J.S.S 3. I crawled deeper into my shells and stayed there.
Because Saraphina seemed to be the most intelligent girl in the class, Mrs Ejifugha noticed me when I took the third position.
She didn't draw me close to her but she drew me out of my shell.
Rest in Peace Mrs Ejifugha.

To Mrs Osuagwu, my Physical and Health Education teacher.
The woman who taught me in a hard way that helping my mother hawk bottles of mineral and sachets of water inside a motor park so we could eat and clothe and live, was child abuse but would flog and send me home each time I was yet to pay my school fees or buy the textbooks we needed for a term.
She would flog me each time I came to school in a rumpled uniform and torn stockings and sandals after flogging me for supporting child abuse. I wondered how else she expected me to replace those if I didn't help my poor Mother.
She was that teacher that sold grades to Nneoma Kalu who always showered her with gifts. Then she made Ebere, Mary and Endalynn the head girls of J.S.S. 1 A&B and in our second year in school too because they would go to the market and when back, make pots of soups for her(she lived close to the school), cleaned her house and at the end of the day, get the highest grades.

Almost all the mornings I was in Mrs Osugwu's class, I felt sick each time I remembered I would be coming to school to meet this woman, to swallow the embarrassments she would give me which after I would excrete them through the liquids that would leave my eyes during break periods when I would be alone in the class, or on my way to the motor park.
But the heights of all she did to me was seen and captured the day she flogged the hell out of me for hawking mineral and sachet water, for not coming to greet her when I saw her.
That day, I swore I was never going to forgive her. I swore she would be paid back even though I didn't know how, but growing up, I said I would look for her when I have gained my voice, and I would remind her of me. Of course she would remember the little poor girl she treated like she treated no other in the class. She would remember Mbagwu, the poor girl who accepted to be abused by her mother, the girl who never paid her school fees on time.

I just cried.
I am still crying. Because I can still remember almost her every words and the many times she flogged me and sent me home because I always had no money to buy her gifts. I am really having a hard time saying I have forgiven her, forgiving what I have been holding onto since 2005; for eleven years now.
But remembering where I am now, I just knelt down, thanked God and then said,

"I have forgiven you Mrs Osuagwu."

I mean it!

Wherever you are, I appreciate you too for teaching me what it really means to be rejected. To hold on to pain for a very long time. You taught me how much pain favouritism and rejection can cause one.
You taught me a lot.

Happy teachers' day!

u should have posted this yesterday op too late for this