Grandfather’s Impression about School and Schooling in a Shithole Country on a Shithole Planet

By

Obododimma Oha

My grandfather did not allow my late father to go to school. My father had to escape to Cameroon where he learnt to read and write without enrolling in any school. That was a feat, not so? But, was my grandfather wrong really? If you dig up and revive his aged bones now and he sees school and schooling in some shithole countries, won't he say to the spirit of my father, "Ntọọ, I told you! I warned you and told you that school is foolishness, but you won't listen! See now, somebody would earn a first degree, a whole first degree, and be selling roasted groundnuts to survive. See now! I said it: schooling is a waste of time! Nkịta nyara akpa, nsị agwụ n’ọhịa"? Yes; when the dog hangs it schoolbag, all the faeces would finish in the bush! And my father would answer: "You said that schooling was a waste of time, but at least I was able to write a letter to you from Cameroon, with my own hand, instead of sending a town-crier!"

It was unfortunate that I was not yet born when my paternal grandfather was alive, but, from what my late father told me about him, he must have been a tough realist and the type that would engage his chi in a wrestling match in the land of the spirits, to the amazement of other spirits. Was he not the one who summoned courage and wrestled with ọkọbizu, the powerful local deity, by catching a monkey, a revered totem of the deity, and hung ikpo the hunting rattler on its neck, so that other monkeys thought it was a hunting dog coming after them and all escaped from the village to keep safe as their friend approached? Grandfather could even stand up against deities in making his blunt point. No wonder our insertion of school and schooling in a shithole country into the paradigm of his thoughts is just in order.

Grandfather did not hate school and schooling; he didn’t just like the product of schooling being a disappointment. First, grandfather believed that your formal education without the foundation of education from the home, the village, the culture and all local institutions, is a colossal waste of time. Why should anybody go to this ilo everyday and end up speaking through his or her nose or hanging wires from ear to ear saying he or she is listening to music and enjoying it? What type of music is that? Or, how could people claim to be educated when they are only interested in hanging combs in their pant pockets and letting their pants drop down to reveal their underwears? I thought that this was just an error, a grievous one, cut out by the fellow working who didn’t tie his pants properly with a rope or belt, and because he was engrossed in his work, he didn’t care about his pants dropped? He did not even care if he went naked; provided he finished his task and did it well! And look at the unkempt hair and the tattered clothes! How could the image of the insane be what school teaches?  Is that not clearly the case of nkịta nyara akpa, nsị agwụ n’ọhịa? Do school and schooling put an evil spirit in people?

So, educated people can’t iron their clothes and look decent? I saw that headmaster’s clothes and ways generally and thought that school dispensed decency! So, school dispenses stupidity? So, what that the bitter kolanut sounds in the mouth is not how it tastes on the tongue? Tụfịkwa!

What one cannot understand is this assumption that those who have been to higher schools and have earned degree certificates are excused from manual labour! You see that! So, my great grandson Obododimma, who has been to the university, can no longer touch the soil, can no longer follow me to the farm! Did our ancestors not say that when one’s hands are soiled in the farm, one can be sure of having palm-oil run on them later? You see, Okeke, I told you that school was total foolishness. So, the education from the farm and attending that meeting of the age-grade or the ụmụnna cannot be connected to what is taught in the fat books?

What is school equipping them to be able to do? I hear those cars they are driving and splashing water on pedestrians were made by the oyibo! What do they then learn at school? To stop me from going to climb the palm-trees to tap my wine? OK, look at ordinary cooking leaves. Which other leaf in the bush have they discovered that humans could eat or use as food? Was it not our ancestors that took the risk and discovered that pumpkin leaves, water leaf, and so many others could be eaten? Even the health-sustaining ones discovered by our ancestors are not being added to food again, under the pretence that they are uncivilised and belong to the past. Who touches ogiri the fermented melon seasoning again? With all their fat books, what new herbs have they discovered? Instead, they are even forgetting those their ancestors found for them!

The worst of it all is that those fellows would spend many years saying they are going to school and at the end are given useless pieces of paper called certificates and cannot get jobs, even as ordinary clerks. Is that not a sheer waste of time? Nkịta nyara akpa, nsị agwụ n’ọhịa!

One is not surprised that they end up selling recharge cards for phones or roasted groundnuts. What are they getting from school and schooling?

The other day one had the misfortune of looking into their shithole classroom while going for one’s wine-tapping rounds. One saw ordinary cement blocks being used as writing desks! Nonsense! What can they learn from blocks as writing desks? Nothing but foolishness!

From the roofs of some of the classrooms, you could see stars in the sky. So, they must be leaking badly in the season of the rains! I hear, too, that teachers may be owed months of wages, but they are still going to school. Nonsense! How could they still be working when they are being owed money? Are they stupid? Can’t their wives see big pestles to use in breaking their heads, their stupid school-going heads? So, that is what Okeke wants or would have done? So, he won’t earn proper salary to compensate for his labour and all those years in school? I said school is foolishness! Not even just foolishness but madness!

Grandfather may be wrong in some respects, but, from what I heard about him, he won’t tolerate slimy arguments, arguments for the sake of having said something, otherwise he would hang ikpo the hunting rattler on the neck of foolish arguing monkey and let him start arguing with other monkeys in the jungle.