"School of hard knocks"


                                                       PhotoCredit: Google
As an undergraduate,school was a bitter-sweet experience.It had its share of sweet  memories-the meeting of new people,freedom from the prying eyes of parents,parties,excursions,fellowships,faculty debates,hall weeks,inaugural lectures,socials and all. It was bitter in the sense that there were stressful, painful experiences.Walking in the hot sun,queuing up for registration,incessant strikes,loads of assignments,series of tests, a lot of financial commitments,dealing with oppression,competition,power outage and yea,water scarcity were unpleasant occurrences which still added spice to life in campus.

One happening that stroke me mostly back in the days  was water scarcity. This was particularly the trend during examinations period. Everything and anything just seemed to go wrong. There would be unstable power supply. Students experienced shortage of funds owing to the fact that the session was coming to an end. So virtually everything was finished in terms of food,provision and most especially money. "Everyone was seeing their period".

 This experience in the University taught me to appreciate water and never take things for granted.  After that incident I stopped wasting water and valued its presence. On that fateful day, I had expected to get water from the tap but to no avail the taps were not cooperating. Staying outside the school hall,the possible alternative of getting water from a well was not feasible,after making several searches. The only hope was to buy bag of pure water.Even as that, a bag of pure water that normally went for 80 naira was increased to 100naira or so. One would not blame the seller afterall the item was in high demand. The law of economics was taking its course. But I couldn't use the pure water lavishly because it would not be possible to cough out money again to buy another.

 It was even more frustrating because examinations were commencing the next day. There was no electricity and no water to cook ,drink or bathe.If only previously, I had stored some water.  The empty gallons and buckets were starring happily at me. Well, some students had courage to do  " rub and shine " but it just didn't do for me. No matter what I would feel uncomfortable. Plan B was to resort to begging for water from a neighbour. He managed to give me a bowl? Just a bowl-Wow!I do not know how I used a bowl of water to bathe but I sha had my bathe with it,shutting every thought that the water could have been contaminated. Somehow my body respected itself,the feeling of going to toilet didn't occur. Besides the toilet was a no-go area this period unless one was ready to throw up with what going to meet ones eye .

Well... I was not the only one suffering from water shortage. Students on campus were facing the same predicament as this was visible in their appearance.Students looked rough.The sales of sweets like tomtom  and chewing gum had increased as these were means of fighting bad breath due to lack of water to brush. Still do not get why these frustrations only happened during examination period.Looked like it was a test to determine that only the fittest survives.  Bottom line was while expecting the best ,prepare for the worst.

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