Obododimma Oha
As a student in University X, I had lectures in one course in one lecturer's office. That lecturer is, unfortunately, dead now. But that is not the significant part. The significant part is this : after teaching for many years in a former university, I joined the staff of University X and was given that very office where I took lectures as a student. My students do not know that the place I shout and call "my office" was a place that I received lectures as a student! Indeed, the expression "soja go, soja come, barrack remain" is a proverbial saying which is indubitably helpful in life, though some may shiver at its "errors" as refined speech.
This saying must have originated from soldiers who domicile in barracks and not from academics. Who says soldiers are not also sources of wisdom and that they only know how to kill? Anyway, "barrack" is only symbolic and could be any public shelter or training ground. The fact is that it is temporary and not permanent. It is nobody's permanent living place.
Some lecturers may have good reasons to turn "their offices" to their bedrooms and even display some decorations as I do myself. But "their offices" are not their offices really. Some other people would move into the barracks one day and power would change hands. Government House should know this. All Government Houses, not just lecturers. Soja must go and soja would come. No shaking, barracks.
It is a relay race, not a championship. If I accept that it is a relay race, what am I really doing to train those who would run very fast, even faster, and can win for us?
It all requires that we should be thorough and determined in preparing people to take over the baton. Call it commitment.
It is important for all occupants of "Barrack" to realize that they would leave "barrack" one day and not create bedrooms there. Or have they come to stay forever? Barracks won't like it. It is not the tradition!
This can even be extended to life itself. We leave the barracks behind when we die. Even if they pack many treasures in the grave or bury the corpse in private jet, the bedroom is still empty! Even the country that one has labored for or have killed people to hold, is left behind. Barracks would always remain!
Barracks would remain. The question is how and in what condition we have let barracks remain. A terrible image or something good-looking? Yes. It is a public place and nobody's personal home. But is that why it should wear an ugly look?
Move and allow barracks to remain enviable! If you are a teacher, have you honestly trained those who should know more than their teachers? How have you left the barracks? Worse than you met it?
Oh, something just occurred to me. The expression does not belong to fine speech! "Barrack," instead of "barracks"! Maybe that is why "barrack" is left to rot away by the elite in power! Let "barrack" continue to remain in the dirt and decay.
It would seem as if "barrack" is a physical thing only. No. It is for us a symbol of what we inherit but easily forget how it shapes the future. "Barrack" is not just inheritance. It is also an obligation.
Let's tie this up neatly. First, we should always be prepared to leave the barracks. Second, the barracks is for everyone and needs to be be made better and better. Third, everywhere we labor for everyone is barracks.
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