by Samson Toromade

I don’t have fond memories of the first time I crossed into the boundaries of Taraba state, I instinctively blocked out most of it. I do remember, though, my first thought as my drowsy eyes forced awake to feast on what was supposed to be “nature’s gift to the nation”. I remember muttering to myself in a bus full of other NYSC victims, “Welcome to hell, Sam.”

Boko Haram was still a legitimate menace in the North in 2015, and no one was eager to have the fatherland nourished with their blood and mangled body parts. So, given a choice, not many of the people I knew wanted to end up there for the much-maligned national youth service. I, too, didn’t. However, I wanted to be posted somewhere very far from my hometown where I had lived my whole life. Life in a single town was suffocating, and like those people that always saw more green on the other side, I always wanted out.

I wasn’t very happy that I got posted to Taraba, but there wasn’t a real sense of regret. It was a great chance to explore outside of my home, and I wasn’t going to mess it up by second-guessing it. The confidence I had in that feeling was shook up a little after I got into Taraba. I wasn’t expecting paradise, but what I saw didn’t fill me with the happiness I hoped a change of scenery would provide.

Over the next three weeks, I went through the motion every youth corps member goes through in orientation camp; the inconvenient morning parades; the thoughtless drills; the miserable meals; the mind-numbing lectures that only a few cared about; the fun; the drama; the pure joy of meeting new people that excite you and ones that’ll make your brain recoil in horror. There’s no need to dwell on any of these; the real work starts when that honeymoon ends.

When I received my posting letter to see I had been posted to a secondary school in Tor-Damisa, Donga, I was distraught. My head was hot and unpleasant thoughts danced around it, and this wasn’t due to the scorching sun we had been exposed to the previous couple of hours participating in the colossally meaningless closing parade. I was upset, not because I had heard terrible news about this place in the three weeks I had been in camp, but because I had heard absolutely nothing about it. No news wasn’t good news for me, and I was right.

My unease worsened when my worst fears were confirmed; there had been a tribal clash the previous week in Tor-Damisa, leaving a trail of burnt houses and 13 bodies. The school was not even in session because many people had deserted the place for safety, because, YOLO. It was one of the most tumultuous nights of my life, because it was then that it really dawned on me that I had indeed come to dine in hell.

The next day, the reticent local government inspector was left with no choice but to repost me, along with three others, to Donga town. It was only a few miles away from Tor-Damisa but relatively ‘safer’.

The first time I was taken to be introduced to my classes, I mumbled to the students something about working together to have a good time together. I was hoping for an MLK impersonation, but could only reach as far as Trump. I sounded clumsy and out of depth. I wasn’t so hot for teaching. I had developed a form of displeasure for it, only not for the same traditional reasons people don’t revere the profession in this part of the world. My problem with it was a personal one: I struggled with stage fright. Standing in front of an audience always made me feel somewhat queasy and vulnerable, so I always hated to stand out in any way. I couldn’t escape this though, so I had to steel my mind for what was to be the next 11 months of my life.

I had been assigned two junior classes, but Government Science Secondary School, Donga is one of the biggest schools in Taraba state, see, so the population of a single class, each divided into five or more arms, bordered on 300 students and then some. This meant I had well over 600 students placed under my tutelage, a rookie with no affinity for teaching, or the experience for it. A number of senior colleagues advised that I dropped one of the classes and when that request was shot down by the management, advised that I devise a way to spread around the classes without exerting myself for the thankless task.  It wasn’t until I went to the classroom to teach for the first time that I realised the enormity of that task.

I had gone into one of my classes to catch up on what they’d been doing with the previous teacher, and I had collected the class note randomly from one of the students. What I found inside was a half taught topic, occupying a couple of pages in the book. It was already seven weeks into the academic term, and they’d only done half a topic. For English language. I dismissed the student as one of those that neglected to copy their notes and collected from the class captain. It was the same.

What I discovered over the course of that week broke my heart to large extents because the students were suffering from neglect, and this was not in English language alone. I had students in my class that didn’t understand a single word of the English language in J.S.S. 2. It was then I decided that the least I could do in my time there was show up for those kids.

What transpired over the next 11 months was the most happy, self-fulfilling period of my life. I dug deep within me to show up to my classes every single day to teach and guide because I genuinely enjoyed it. Surprisingly. The students loved it at first, someone paying particular attention to them; then they were overwhelmed, sometimes complaining that I showed up too frequently, or stayed too long; and when they realised I wasn’t going anywhere, made their peace with it.

I wasn’t just their teacher in that time, I was their friend. After classes, I stayed behind to listen to them be kids; their fun stories and the things that troubled them; we gossiped about the other teachers; they saw the best side of me; a few times, they unlocked the worst part too; they showered me with nicknames, Sir English, Sir Jagulele (this one I hated). I was very involved with my students so much I could draw the family tree of some them; I knew half of them by their first names, and half of that population by their last names too. It was a small town, so I ran into them very frequently, and this added another dimension to our relationship.

During my last term, I took up another senior class whose English language teacher only taught once a month. I taught them after school hours and the sort of things they hadn’t been taught for their level made me feel sorry for them, and sad that I couldn’t do for them more than I was already doing.

For someone that didn’t much fancy the role, I did a lot of teaching than I was required to. More importantly, I did a lot of learning too. I got an education about a wholly different culture, while I was physically immersed in it. My only real failure was not doing enough to learn any of the few languages they spoke there, something my students always gave me grief for. I learned from the struggles of my students; some of them dealt with demons at such a young age that many adults will never have to their entire lives. Sometimes, I feared they had no idea how strong they were.

I was hanging out in class with a few of my students during my last month there when Clement, one of the oldest kids in my class said, “Sir, you going is like me losing my father, true.” He still has a father so I was sure he couldn’t really know the feeling just yet. I assured him the situation wasn’t as bleak as it might appear to him at the time. That declaration did take me by surprise though. I was aware I had quite an impact with those kids; I just had no idea it ran that deeply.

On the cold April morning I boarded a cab to return home, I felt a lot of unease clutching all the memories of the place in my balled fists, hoping never to lose any. That morning, I felt a great sense of grief, like I was losing my children.

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This entry was submitted as part of the Nigerian Voices competition organized by YNaija.com.

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