Episode 3 | UG ON WHATSAPP

While searching for hostels off campus physically, my online presence (this is just a fancy way of saying my daily use of WhatsApp) also grew. I got to know that I can do almost everything through WhatsApp while on the University of Ghana campus. I mean, the entire university is on WhatsApp. Please do not misunderstand this as being that every student on campus is on the social media platform. I’m talking about having the school system and how it functions on the platform. You’ll understand this better soon. Anyway, do you want to know when your next lecture is? Check WhatsApp. Want to know the date, time and location of your Interim Assessment (IA)? Just check WhatsApp. Want to order food? Just have the right connections on WhatsApp.

MORE ABOUT SARBAH ANNEX A

The experience on the next day was no different. Long tiring walks which resulted in nothing. Looking back, I really don’t regret it but I just wish I had spent even one day at the orientation no matter how much my butt would have hurt.

Anyway, while I was going through the emotional and psychological torture of making myself believe I would never get my place, I was familiarizing myself with the hall. I was getting to know the people on my floor and the other floors. Oh, did I tell you about the fact that we also shared the lavatories? Well, two or three rooms each made up of four legal members and ‘perchers’, if any, shared one lavatory. So, if you want to do the deed and the key is not in your room, you’d have to get it from the next room.

They also introduced me to water shortage. Sometimes the tap would just stop flowing and we’d have to go downstairs to the poly tanks to fetch water. These were horrible times for me because I hadn’t sent a bucket to school and if not because the one I was ‘perching’ had more than one bucket and her roommates were friendly, there would have been a case of a student who couldn’t take her bath before her 7:30 class, which I’m certain is not uncommon.

HURRAY!!! TO SARBAH ANNEX A PORTERS

One thing I love and would always cherish about Mensah Sarbah Hall (MSH) is the porter-student relationship. While some halls like Legon Hall have very strict porters who could scare the life out of you, MSH porters are chill. While some friends of mine who were perching in other halls were always complaining about the porters-the many questions they ask, the uncountable number of lies my friends had to cook up to cover their perching tracks and the number of times their freedom of movement was curtailed because going out meant they could be locked out and they wouldn’t be able to sleep in the hall because they were not legal members-I built a friendship with most of the porters at MSH.

I had become more than a legal member of the hall within a few days of my stay. And I got to learn, as a friend of mine (Edudzi) pointed out, that porters are most useful twice a semester (when school resumes and when school goes on vacation). One morning as I was going up the stairs, one porter who called me and asked me for my room number (my mind almost went blank). Thankfully, he was one of the friendly porters. I walked up to the porters’ desk as confidently and gracefully as I could manage in my almost traumatized state and told him I was staying with someone (which is completely against the ‘non-existent’ but very important perching codes). I continued to explain how it was temporary and that I was looking for my place. I had put my all in and was expecting the worse (being kicked out of the hall with the one I was staying with) but he only smiled and said I could go on. I almost hugged him but I restrained myself, said thank you whole heartedly and continued to enthusiastically climb the stairs (that was the happiest I was climbing stairs).

From this experience, I learnt the importance of telling the truth. If I had lied, he would have known because right behind the porters’ desk is a board that has all the room numbers and the passport sized photographs of all the legal members of each room. Lying would have just resulted in the worst-case scenario.

MEETING THE MATES

Then Friday came, and they introduced me to a unique group of guys. These guys make my stay in UG fun. So, Friday was just another day right, went through the whole searching for a hostel, making new friends, not finding any hostel, being afraid of being caught by the porters’ routine and was resting on my bed when I heard drums and loud male voices singing various songs. As a typical Ewe and as curious as I could be, they intrigued me.

I went to the balcony and saw a group of guys playing the drums, singing and dancing all over the Annex A parking lot. They were wearing traditional attires (Batakari) and some of them were bare-chested, especially the ones who played the drums. They even had traditional guns with them which they fired at regular intervals (hearing the first shot took me by surprise, the thought of University students being allowed to have guns on campus completely burst my brain). One of them was ordering the various rooms on the block to switch off their balcony lights. Every few seconds you’d hear him shout a room number and order them to switch their balcony light off. When I looked up at the other rooms, the students from those rooms were also on their balconies enjoying the scene. Just before they stopped drumming, singing and dancing, a driver drove a car to the entrance of the parking lot. The guy shouting for the driver to switch the headlights dashed towards the driver and had almost burst the headlights of the car while screaming “ɖum wò headlight”, the scared driver quickly switched off the headlights of the car and drove the off. I do not understand why they were obsessed with putting out lights. One guy announced that they were there to welcome the freshers to school, and it fascinated me.

I mean, having a group of random guys welcoming you (technically not only me, but I can feel special) to school, that’s not something you see every day. During the welcome address, some of us who the show amazed wanted to record them with our phones (21st century children want a record of everything) but my roommates advised us otherwise. It is a taboo to record them (I learnt something valuable from this experience. If I had brought out my phone to record, I would have missed the entire live performance. It pays to be in the moment. My life was not on my phone after all).

After the entire welcome address, which included the landlord wishing freshers the best of the semester, they continued playing their drums and singing. My roommates told me they were the Okpo mates and amazingly, they lived right on the third floor of the block on which we were. They had their landlords and deputy landlords. They were basically the traditional leaders of the hall. After the entire address, some students moved from their rooms to join them downstairs and they had a ‘jama night’. I sang along to some of the songs that sounded familiar while in the comfort of my room. This night made all the days of fruitless walking worth it; it was simply refreshing.

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to be continued...

PLAYLIST

Bébé by MHD ft Dadju

Scars to your beautiful by Alessia Cara