The fire alarm woke me up and for a moment, I had no inkling where I was, I’d had the weirdest of dreams, about tiny little yellow buses and men hanging out the door! I groped for the light switch and winced as 2 angry bulbs of light glared at me in disapproval. My bed side clock told me it was 7:30 am and every cell in my body moaned about getting up after just 3 hours of sleep. I groaned as I swung my feet over the side of my bed and got up. Blame it on the blasted paper that was due in about 8 hours or on the screeching alarms that threatened to blow my head up, but this day was starting out on a really bad note! I pulled on a coat and joined the other sleepy, grumpy souls of the Dover Street apartments filling out of their rooms and down six flights of stairs to the assembly point in the courtyard (yeah you got that right, six flights and no lifts when the alarms go off!). It was yet another fire drill and it was bad enough that we all hated the fire drills but did we have to go through them at two degrees?! If there was anything I hated about London, it was the winters; cold bitter, miserable mornings, nights that were made for burrowing under sheets and not for reading, lethargic afternoons during which we struggled through classes in stupor like zombies, numb feet and fingers, frozen ears, the gallons and gallons of coffee we downed, (I’m not even sure if that was to keep warm or simply to stay awake!), I hate winter!!! I stayed at the edge of the crowd, hoping to make a hasty exit as soon as the drill was over, maybe I could still snag an hour or so of sleep before I had to prepare for my first class….
*
Then I started awake and the alarms were still blaring. What on earth?! I groped for the switch, brazing myself for the jolt when the lights came on but nothing happened. I flicked the switch again and again, still nothing. I lay in bed for a moment, disorientated and trying to figure out where I was and wishing the noise would just go away before my head exploded. It took a while to figure out how to turn off the alarm clock and even longer to figure out why I couldn’t see anything. The power was out again. For the third day in a row, the campus was out of power and we had been on a power-ration from the generators. Vaguely, I remembered being in the reading room with a few of my friends during the few hours in the night that it’d had power. That was the game we played these days, you planned your day around the power-ration and tried to beat it, so to speak. So here I was, 6 AM on a Monday morning, no power and no running water and already knowing it was going to be a hell of a week! Well, welcome to my world, I was just another one of the forty thousand or so students of The University of Lagos, so who cares if I can’t get a shower! I grabbed a torch light and made my way to the bore-hole which served my hostel and the male hostel adjacent to it and after about 30 minutes, got a bucket of water and returned to my hostel. The Moremi Hall of residence was the most popular female hostel back then and everyone who was anyone wanted to reside there. Maybe that was because it the closest female hostel to most of the academic faculties, maybe it was because it was one of the few hostels that offered two-man rooms, or maybe it was just because it had earned a reputation over the years (not a totally good reputation, mind you), but Moremi Hall had its appeal. Forget the fact that I shared a communal bathroom with all the girls on one whole block of rooms and usually had to wait on a queue or the fact that the meals at the cafeteria cost a fortune, I loved living in Moremi and always got that thrill anytime I told people “...Oh, I stay in Moremi” It sort of put you in a class of its own! Two hours later, I was dressed and ready for my first class of the day. Armed with the assignment I had stayed up half the night to finish and an empty stomach because no power meant I couldn’t use the hot plate to prepare what had become my regular breakfast of late – noodles, and let’s just say I was a little too broke for breakfast at the cafeteria. Could the day get any worse?! I should have waited before asking that question because there was so much more in store for me!
*
After donning about 4 layers of clothing, a coat, muffler, gloves, wool cap and huggies boots, I got on bus 188 not far from the Dover Street apartments. No train rides till further notice, I was kinda running low on cash and like Tesco keeps reminding me, every little helps! About 15 minutes into the ride, I heard the dreaded message “This bus terminates here, please take all your belongings with you!”Arrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!! This never ever happened on this route, why was everything going wrong today?!! Had to wait almost 20 minutes in the awful cold for another bus to come along, add to that the fact that I was running late, could this day get any worse?!
My worries were forgotten for a moment as I walked to the front doors of the strand campus. As always, I scanned the names and pictures displayed on the front windows; Desmond Tutu, James Clark Maxwell, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin...and I was yet again hit by the pride and awe that came from knowing I was a part of this, I belonged here, I belonged in the King’s success story!
*
My first class was Dynamics and I got to class early enough to snag a seat on the second row. Last week, I’d had to share one on the fifth! The lecturer came in and after taking one look around the class, announced that the lecture was postponed due to the power outage. Great! So much for going to such lengths to make the class in the first place! Then he delivered the news that almost gave me a nervous breakdown: A new hand-out was ready and it cost just 500 bucks! Plus there was a test in two weeks and no hand out, no test!!! What was I supposed to do?! I definitely did not have 500 Naira! I was too broke even to get a hot meal because I was saving every kobo to get the samples I needed for my final year project, add to that the fact that I had a 50 page paper to print out before the end of the week, now this! It was going to take more than a miracle to get out of the spot I was in! Hard as I hated to admit it, it was time to eat humble pie and give my parents a call!
*
My last class ended at 3 and I dashed to the PAWS room to print out my coursework. Thank goodness the Department of Engineering provided free printing because I sure could not afford to pay for printing! With my fingers crossed, I checked my mail box as well and the mail I’d been dreading all week was right there. I’d received another warning because the second instalment of my accommodation fee was overdue. The first warning had come last week and back then I’d told myself I would be able to put something together before the week ended. Unfortunately, that was wishful thinking because the job I had working three nights a week at a coffee shop provided just enough for me to get by on with no extras. Arrrggghhh! Coming to London, so far from home had been all about proving to my parents that I was a big girl and could take care of myself. It was bad enough that they had to pay my tuition fees and the first instalment of my accommodation fees, I had hoped to take care of everything else! I dropped off my coursework at the school office feeling like the day was a hundred hours old already. I was off at the café and I wondered if I was up for a few hours at Maughan Library or if I wanted to go on to Tutu’s to drown out my woes! On the long run, I decided to start the bus journey back to Great Dover street, misery sure didn’t like company this time, neither did it welcome any form of studying even though I had another coursework due real soon. While waiting for my bus, I made a call with the last airtime I had left on my mobile. Shivering from head to toe, teeth clattering (I couldn’t even afford an extra cup of coffee today), I waited as the phone rang at the other end, mentally willing someone to pick up. Finally, I heard that flowery voice I hated to admit I had missed. I took a long breath, brazing myself, “Good evening mum….” It was time to eat humble pie…..
