Sufferring and Smiling

In the beginning, there was suffering; and suffering was with punishments and the seniors ensured one had a foretaste of hell before disembodiment. The preceding sentence sums up my first years at Compro, when the thought of returning to school after a break was a definite kill-joy, up until SS1 (I joined Compro in JSS 2). How I survived those two years of water scarcity, bathing and washing my uniforms with a sponge-case of water, hunger, and the sheer wickedness of some seniors was nothing short of a miracle. After the bore-hole was operational, I could cross out water scarcity and its attendant torments but the seniors and hunger more than made up for the shortfall. It was when I entered SS1 and was considered one of the “big boys” did Compro begun to look more like an academic institution than a hell-hole. (This is not surprising since I now had three generations of juniors behind me.) Although I wanted to take “retribution” on my juniors for my ill experiences during my first years at Compro, my heart was not with my head and I couldn’t make their lives a living nightmare. And, boy, after reading some postings on this section, e.g. Ademakinwa’s (I shared the same dorm with him), I was sure glad that I had the reputation of being a gentle senior.