Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 10

Episode 4 years ago

Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 10

Lauren slid down the side window as Jide drove through the school’s gate into the midst of the short and scattered buildings, the same kind that dominated Apapa. She frowned at the few girls who roamed in frayed shorts, topped with easy-wears aberrant of a school environment, and the boys did not seem to care. Boys walked alongside boys and girls walked alongside girls. It was as though it was the Nigeria’s custom. The same thing happened in the church. The boys sat on a separate row from the girls and anybody who walked in seemed already accustomed with the formula. In Nigeria, everybody minded his own path.
No designer needed to tell her the gold jewellery glittering and dangling from some of the girls’ necks were fake. Only fake jewellery blazed like gold-plated medals, and the girls swaggered as though they wore the world. No one should crucify them, though. The fake had no difference with the original if the surrounding persons couldn’t differentiate them. Her aunt used to say that.
People lined themselves at the front of a tall building, tall when compared to the others. They held bags, files and other things that made them look student. Jide talked on how he used to visit his friend who attended the University, and how they used to go to the school auditorium to see the framed photographs of the white lecturers and white founders of the school. They would laugh at their long noses, white beards and funny names like Walter Falls.


“Those people standing front of the auditorium, what are they doing?”
“They are probably making complaints about admissions. You have no business there. Log into your computer and clear yourself, then you’re good.”
The man her dad brought helped her do all those. “Admission problems like?”
“Changing courses and many others. Be grateful you didn’t experience those. I did in my time. I wrote my exam twice before getting admitted into a state school, and when admitted, I encountered lots of paper trouble.”

It was surprising that difficulty in admissions was also present in Africa, and not only the Canadian schools with big names.
Jide pointed to a group of bungalows, competing for space with the prides of Barbados that had leaves spread like robins with rainbow wings. It was the Admin, and anything concerning fees was done there. She had thought every of those things were done online.

Jide glanced at her and cracked a little chuckle. “I can’t understand why you decided to school here when you have so many better choices in your motherland.”
“My dad is here. I want to be with him, and it’s interesting to explore the world. One of every three Americans’ dreams is to explore Africa. No doubts that Nigeria is a good place to start from.”

“What about mum?”
“Mom bases in Switzerland, and I so don’t want to be in that country. She is the greatest activist of me schooling here.”
“Why don’t you go school in Switzerland? It has enough good schools.”
“I want Africa.”

“Or you want dad?”
She wondered what made him think that, and what made him say it as though it was a bad thing to want dad. “Both. I might further elsewhere, but for now, Africa is good. People have made it here. You have.”
He whirled the steering right and said nothing more.

“My mom is around. She came to Nigeria last weekend for a month leave, which I believe will extend more than that.”
“I hope she succeeds in taking you to Switzerland for schooling. The universities there are good, well equipped, recognized, standard, and up to date.” He gave them all sorts of praises before he finally ended, and her ears got some rest.
A signboard of two persons eating fronted a russet array of bungalows. “Is that the school café?”
“Yes, that’s the only place you may enjoy in the school if things haven’t changed. I remember one time I ate there. They used to have good pepperonis and sausages.”
“Let’s go have a little something.”
His face folded into a grimace. “I don’t intend to spend the whole day here. Let’s do what we came here for.”

“The pepperonis might be as good as before. You won’t know unless you try. Use it as a compensation for being a week late in giving me this tour.”
“Are you hungry?”


She weighed her tummy. Though full, one snack wouldn’t make it burst. “One doesn’t eat only when hungry.”