It's my first time posting in this community, thanks to the entries I saw and I got to see that it was a topic I could go days talking about because as a student who stayed in the boarding house or dormitory throughout the secondary school days, I sure do have a lot of pleasant and unpleasant memorias, hehehe.
Funny enough how this particular incidence sticks to my brain for many years now, It's always fun whenever I remember what happened that day (obviously because I wasn't caught).....
Stories to tell indeed.
I went to a seminary school for my secondary education and one peculiar thing about them was their discipline and strictness towards religious activities.
We pray more than three times a day and I get to wonder if we came to school to pray or to read, lol.
Did I mention that we wake up by 4:30am everyday?
Exactly, that's the time we wake up everyday, the time when the early morning sleep hits differently and guess what?
We use the next 90minutes for praying.
It's not what we enjoyed doing everyday but we had no option.
Finally, I was in my SSS3 and we were then the king of the school and had to worry about the higher authorities alone.
One particular morning during the harmattan period when there is always this great wave of cold early in the morning and we were expected to bath with cold water as early as that 4:30am before going to church for the Holy Mass.
Honestly, bathing was never the problem but the problem was going to church that early morning instead of sleeping further
This particular day, the rising bell was rung, I heard it loud and clear and closed my ear but unknown to me that many other persons did exactly what I did.
The number of SSS3 students that went to chapel that day was greatly reduced that the priest noticed we didn't come for the Holy Mass that early morning.
At the point of homily, the priest sent the Seminarian and other staff members to go get the names of those that "dodged the chapel" as we say.
We were still enjoying our sleep like babies unknown to us that the dormitory gate has been locked and the moment was upon us.
There was this guy that stays just immediately when you open the door, Ernest...
When the foot soldiers entered and saw Ernest, he was immediately visited with series of floggings and that made him shout at the top of his voice.....
The Shouting quickly alerted us that there was trouble already.
You needed to see the swift movement every other person made immediately looking for a dodging spot to avoid getting caught.
On my end, I found myself under the bed immediately
Did I mention I was the deputy senior prefect?
Well, I was and I was like,
Jeez, what is the deputy senior prefect doing under the bed
I knew I needed to exploit every option I had because my punishment will be worst if caught.
The foot soldiers were very determined to get every single one of us and kept picking us out from our hiding zones one after the other.
It was almost looking impossible to escape but guys will always be guys, lol
Next thing we heard was a loud noise of someone who jumped out of the window.
Yes, it's always a culture to secretly destroy one window which will serve as an escape route in difficult moments whenever we enter SSS2 and SSS3 class.
When the guy jumped out, many of us made our way to the window because we knew the next line of action will be assigning one of the foot soldiers to the window and that will mean total annihilation, lol.
I was fortunate enough to reach the window before the foot soldier and jumped out alongside some other persons.
On reaching the dormitory gate, we found out it's been locked and I immediately knew that these guys were really out for serious business.
They started chasing us around but thanks to our big dormitory, we continued running from one hostel to another.....
I remember running inside the JSSS2 hostel only for me to meet some of these children that dodged the mass also but then that wasn't time to form the deputy senior prefect anything because I just wanted to escape first
We continued running around until it was around 6am and they had to end the chase because the holy mass was over and if they continued will disrupt the whole academic activities of the day.
It was indeed a day to remember
I quickly prepared for refectory, went there and took a very big share of the food to recover all the energy I spent running around 😂
I was very happy I escaped because the people caught were punished severely, they continued cutting the grass at the field for one week and were given a week suspension.
What would I have told my mother?😂
***We don't use phones in my secondary school but even if we used, I doubt I'll be taking pictures in this scenario 🤣
Thanks for reading through 👍