Knockout
Our first year in the Nigeria we rented a small apartment near a Government school nearby taught by many great teachers. My father wanted me to go the school. He believed real education can only be found in a government school.
The teachers were hefty, fat, slim, bald- everything made one teacher distinct from the other.
I liked them alot, especially my grandmotherly primary three teachers, Mrs. Folarin. I had a lovely name, she said, and she had me teach the whole class how to pronounce it. E-ven-lyn. As the only pupil who had ever travelled abroad, I was put in a special seat in the first row by the window, apart from the other children, so that Mrs. Folarin tutor me Yoruba without disturbing others. Slowly, I began to learn new word in Nigeria such as 'culture, traditionals, black, Africans.
Soon, I picked up enough english to know that terrorism was thick in the air.
Mrs. Folarin explained to a wide-eyed classroom what was happening in Northen Nigeria. Boko Haram were blowing up places and people. She explained that if these people were not caught we would have what she called Insurgence.
At home, we were exposed to the sound of these bombs through media. I heard new vocalbulary: Bomb, Explosion, Bokoharam.
Mrs. Folarin explained how it happened. She drew a house and later made white flurry of chalk marks to show it being on fire. She advised us not to allow religion lead us in killing human. She admonished us that fighting for religion was bad.
The months grew cold, Novermber, December. It was dark when I got up in the morning, frosty when I followed my breath to school.
One morning, as I sat at my desk daydreaming out the window. Something loud exploded from outside the school just like the sound we heard on the media.
I shrieked, ' Bomb, Bomb!'
Mrs. Folarin jerked around, her big skirt ballooning as she hurried to my side. A few pupils began to cry.
But then Mrs. Folarin's shock look faded as another sound rocked the air.
' Why, Evelyn dear, that's banger. Celebration is in the air!' She laughed.' Knockout'.
' Knockout', I repeated. I looked out the window warily. All my life I had heard about the sound of Bomb.
After school I stalled at the stall of some women, admiring the knockouts as my friends showed them to me. Each one sparked desire to rejoice in me. And I looked at my one of my friends. I touched her arm when I saw the fearful look on her face. I told her my new vocabulary. ' It's only Knockout. It's not a bomb'.

Dedicated to everyone in the north, who live in fear.