₦airaland Forum

HOSTEL WAHALA 3
Boys can cook! Whether what they cook is delicious or not is of no importance. What carries weight in Hall 4 is that food enters your stomach. My big nose was irritated by different aromas of food from different rooms in my first few days in the hostel. I will perceive 'ogbono' soup from one room and spaghetti from another. The strong men in my room will be disturbing with rice and oil, and the guys next door will set my nostrils ablaze with the aroma of fish dancing in hot oil. Everywhere, the smell of beans is a constant!

Though I was irritated at first by this conglomerate of different aromas, I eventually fell in love with it. In times of hunger, all I do is stroll by and the aromas alone fill my nostrils, then go straight to my stomach and I become filled. I didn't say I go asking for food, I only go about collecting the aromas. Just aromas.

Right from my first day in the hostel, taking my bath or using the toilet was always a wahala. Being a JJC, I would wake up very early in the morning so I could get to class early and lay a stronghold on one of the front seats in the always crowded 500 LT where we received lectures. Getting to the bathroom, it would be dry as the Kalahari Desert. I would then rush to the tap outside, and meet an army of Hall 4 boys waiting for the water to start running with buckets queued up.

I join in the league, waiting. When the water eventually shows up, buckets that were never in the queue equally would show up at the front. And I kept wondering where they came from. This disgusted me at first, but with time I got used to it because it all made life in the hostel interesting.

The bathroom is another world of its own. Some boys would spend over several minutes taking their baths leaving others waiting especially when the showers are working. Those outside would keep banging at the doors, asking those inside to come out. But many would not just care. Until they have washed their bodies spotlessly clean, they would not come out.

And the scene that always go on in front of the toilets is a story I cannot tell with words. After downloading series of heavy meals, the lucky ones would rush into the toilets like someone being pursued by a madman. While the unlucky ones would have to wait until those inside are through. While those inside are comfortably dishing out their excesses, those outside are grinding in pain as their excesses are wanting to come out urgently. Trust them to bang at the doors, and trust those inside to always ignore. It is always a scene, but no one commits a sin by fighting.

We have porters in the hostel. They are in charge of the hostel. But in Hall 4, we see them as anti-hot plate men. The hostel authorities do not allow electric cookers which we commonly call hot plate in the hostel. But some Hall 4 boys are not generous enough to allow the luxury of using a kerosine stove, so hot plates find their way into the hostel, and do their job of cooking the big boys' meals. However, the potters would sometimes go from rooms to rooms checking if there are hotplates, and if they find any with you or in your corner, you would have a stone to grind with them.

So, when the porters are going round checking, some good boys would be shouting, "Hall four brothers, hot plate is coming." The wise ones will understand enough to make their hotplates disappear or invisible. Those that have been caught with hotplates had long stories to tell.

The small buka in our unit gets more customers than the Mat-Ice Fast Food near the Nursing Hostels. The first day I saw boys ordering and eating, I was completely dumbfounded. Why?

To be Continued !

HOSTEL WAHALA 2
I cried that evening that the rats in the room quietly picked up their bags, bade me goodbye and left the room because my sobbing was disturbing them. I really did not know why I was already missing my family. I had not even spent a night in my strange hostel!

I tried eating but the grains of rice became Mike Tyson on my sore throat. I defeated them with water from a sachet. Hours later, some persons came into the room. They were as big as my elder brother. What the hell were they doing here. Like an antivirus software, they scanned me with their big eyes as if I were from planet Mars or sorts.

They knew at once I was a fresher and asked me if I had gotten a bed space in the room. I answered yes, but in my mind I wondered why there were asking such an annoying question. If I had not gotten bed space, what then the hell was I doing in the room?

We introduced ourselves, and I discovered they were squatters( a term used for those who live in the hostel with their friends or even enemies but have no bed space). And worse of all, they were not squatting with anybody in the room, they came on their own and became landlords in the rooms they did not pay for. Why couldn't they? They were final year Engineering students.

Days passed, and Room 133, Unit 3 in Hall 4 became a market place. All my roommates had moved in, and some moved in with friends. We were supposed to be eight living in the rooms, but when I woke up one morning and counted, we were twelve. The Engineering bosses moved out, but one kept coming.

Strange hostel, strange roommates. The only thing we had for one another in the first few days together was a good morning, and sometimes, welcome. How was I going to live with eleven strange boys in one room? I was going to melt like candle wax. The only consolation I had was that my course mate was also my bunkmate.

When the stoves and hot plates came out, and pots landed on them, I knew for sure that I was in serious wahala.

To be Continued !

HOSTEL WAHALA 1

The day I moved into the beans-famed Hall 4 has been my most ridiculous day ever, and I well mean that.

I was excited about leaving home and moving into the hostel. I had heard several stories about Hall 4 particularly, but I just didn't care.

I was told that boys go from room to room with spoons in their pockets, but I just did not care. I was told there were some 'big boys' that would molest freshers like me, but I just did not care. All I wanted was to leave home, and start a new life at the hostel. But when my pretty sister bade me goodbye at the unit 1 gate of Hall 4, I started to care. It was so scary!

I can't remember what made me scared, but I was just afraid, or perhaps anxious. Everything made me afraid. From the interrogating glances from the Hall 4 boys to the quizzing looks of the porters , I was vibrating in my bones.

The only thing that gave me courage to move a feet and drag my Olumo Rock-weighing bag along were the similar anxious faces of freshers like me who were moving in with all the properties they had in the world. I wondered if they were going to live in the hostel forever.

I presented my hostel card to one of the porters who took time to look at my frightened rashes-stained face and the person in the passport photograph attached to the card. When his mind finally told him it was me, he allowed me in.

I used all the energy I had and commanded my heavy bag to follow me to the hot Unit 3. Approaching Unit 3, the scene right in my face was completely barbaric. I wanted to abandon my bag, and just run away. I saw big boys completely naked having their baths individually in the open air. They just didn't seem to care if anybody was looking. I had never seen anything like that all my life. "Are there no bathrooms?" I asked my confused mind.

How on earth was I going to live in a place were people have their bath outside naked ? I started crying on the inside. Don't blame too much. I had never seen anything like that all my life. I turned my face away with less luck and hurriedly located my room.

I entered the room, and there was no roommates to welcome me. Many of them had not moved in. I did some prayers and clean up, then laid on my bed and started to cry . For, I cried. Tears came out! What was I crying about?

I had started to miss my wonderful family.