And talking about that, it was a terrible experience for me - that grade 3 result. I will never forget it.
I tell you, what my sisters did to me because of that result, using their mouths, cannot be described.
They kept ringing it in my ears.
"Emeka ị gbatara gịnị? Forty out of fifty!" they sang especially, each time I went to the pot to collect food.
"Iti mpataka, iti akwụ, sọ sọ nri ka ọma," they threw at me.
I cried and cried and cried. But then, I knew I had to change. But, I didn't really change wilfully. It was fear that changed me. A very palpable fear.
I developed that fear from then on and, never again was I a bad pupil.
It all culminated in me being that boy from 'number10 slaughter' who always brought home the best result. And when I gained admission, in the primary list, to study medicine, it was a big headline. Because, I was the first to do it in the hood. It was unheard of in the hood that someone could write jamb without 'expo' and still make it into 'med/surg' primary list.
My matriculation was a big party, in spite of my effort to convince my parents not to 'do matriculation,' for me because it was vanity. As a church boy, I believed the money was better spent on the motherless babies.
But, no one listened to me. The people of our yard, just shoved me aside on the night I told them i didn't want a party, before they started making fire for the jollof rice and pounded yam.
One woman said to me. "You're talking because you are doing well. Go inside our room and see that N'ámá (cow) sleeping away on the bed. He couldn't even pass his WAEC." She shook her head, blew he nose and, continued peeling a tuber of yam. Smh!
African parents have bad mouths, shaa. I felt for the boy.
Chisom Idoko, sweetheart. Happy new year.
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