Do you remember when you were in Primary one and the things our cyto Chichers used to instruct us to do? Never mind; that’s how we pronounced ‘Teacher’ then. I don’t know about now.  Chicha comes, and starts ‘Class Ten…Sit’….Ten…Sit….I say Class Ten….Sit’?

This went on and on till I thought I was actually in the tenth class. That’s the first slang one probably got from a cyto teacher referring to ‘Class Stand’ and blofolises it to ‘Class Ten’…! Ei Anunmle 1&2 on its own and Anunmle 3&4 also on its own running the morning and afternoon shifts.

 In one of our class lessons in Primary 4, each member of the whole class was to give the name of any known tree. Kpekpe raised his hand, ‘Sir, mango tree’. ‘Correct, sit down’. Akapanga raised his hand: ‘Sir, dawadawa tree’. ‘Correct. Sit down…clap for in…kpa kpa…kpakpa kpa…kpaaaaaa! Adabagaru Tigawutti Vokuyibor raised his hand ‘Sir, nim tree’.

This Adabagaru guy er…hmmm! The average age in Primary 6 then was 13 but Adabagaru alone was 27 years old and they made him School Prefect ahead of our Seniors in Primary 6 even though he was my classmate in Primary 4.  He was very tall, muscular and had the nicest handwriting in class and would write nicely but often didn’t understand what he was writing!  

It was only when the Chicha got to Wisdom to name a tree too that I was sure all the trees might have finished by the time it got to his turn! ‘Yes, Wisdom’, asked Teacher Amama Sept. ‘Yoryi tree’, answered Wisdom. The beatings that followed thereafter er.  Hmmm!

Dr Brenya, just bcos you attended Morning Starr should not make you harass my Anunmle background early this morning o, yoo! Hahaaaaa! You no know say cyto sweet pass Montessori? It is only at cyto that you would get to know that the lion’s tail is in its head. As we rhyme: ‘A lion, a  lion, a lion has a tail (and then we hold the head)…it has a big head (and then we hold the waist)…and a very small waist (then we hold the tail). We did all of these just to frustrate the Chichers unknowingly! Hmmm!

Last two weeks when I heard GTT Bank went to set up an ICT centre at my Alma Mater, Anunmle, you have no idea how excited I became by this corporate social responsibility of theirs. As to what informed the choice of Anunmle, maybe a coincidence of a sort or serendipity personified, For me, it is MY best bank in the whole world – GTT Bank. Before this gesture of theirs, they had always excited me with their service quality.

Musician Kwabina Kwabina, do you remember those days in Anunmle when you have ‘True or False’ questions where you only have to tick  T or F? Mostly the questions would be 10 in number and chances were that 5 would be True and 5 would be False but how to identify them was the problem. I devised a means of at least breaking even when the going got tough.

Anytime was confronted with a challenge like that I chose to tick all ‘False’ or all ‘True’. At least was guaranteed that at least 5 will be correct! If you don’t use your head, your body will suffer la!

Imagine me going to seek permission to go out to urinate and Anunmle brofo, OMG! Chai! Mrs Katoko of Anunmle 3 Primary School in the early 80s. A class mate walked to her and said something I only heard as ‘please teacher…’ That was all I heard and was not sure of how he ended the sentence and the teacher allowed him to go out and urinate. Guided by this, I also went and to Madam and said ‘Please Teacher’…while still standing there. Hai!

The teacher was just looking at me expecting me to conclude what I’d wanted to say. In fact, I had nothing more to say bcos for me ‘please teacher’ was a complete statement because if my friend said ‘please teacher’ and he was allowed to go out, how come I was being asked to add something? ‘I repeated…’please teacher’.

That was when my troubles started! The teacher lost her temper and asked ‘please teacher what? ‘Please Teacher what?’, Mrs Katoko retorted angrily with a cane already greeting me on the head! What was my offence here?. I only told myself this thing was unfair. How come someone said ‘please teacher’ and you allowed him to go and urinate and when I said same, I was being lashed? If you have attended a Montessori, sorry you have missed the real fun of life!

On 6^th March, 1990 I was privileged to have been selected among a few brilliant pupils from Anunmle JSS by Mr Ben Tetteh and Ms Josephine Hekli (fantastic duo) to go to the Trade Fair for the first time. My eyes were opened. It was nostalgic to see the round pavilion the last time I visited the place. That was the first time I saw a fountain. How can water go up, fall down and never fill the tank? I wondered. From Anunmle through Achimota Village in a hired bus singing vernacular jamma songs that made no sense, I pretended to be ‘eye open’ but my walking gave me up.

At the Trade Fair Centre, we met pupils from Christ the King, Morning Star, Achimota Primary, SOS, and imagine the sharp contrast between the former on one hand and Anunmle boys and girls interspersed with Aayalolo, Abavana and Haatso Under 17 Cluster of schools walking in only God knows where we got those slippers from or they didn’t even look like sandals. Aooo! Cyto go kill us. The pupils from the ‘classic and powerful schools spoke impeccable Grammar and carried on them beautiful lunch bags and teddy bears. For us, so so Twi Twi, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ewe, Ewe and Hausa.

The best you would hear some of us speak especially when arguing with our Dadabee friends from the endowed schools when we were confused and intimidated by their presence was ‘ern…you say what?’ instead of just saying ‘pardon?’ and then we would walk away mostly sheepishly with some village swag without waiting to get an answer. We often did this to prevent these rich boys and girls from asking further ‘technical’ English questions in slangs. They didn’t know it was a strategy to avoid further embarrassment!

Montesori guys often hated fighting and would quail when they saw cyto boys biting and hitting at each other. Abeg, they were not fights oo; they were simply expressions of frustration due to poverty from home and we often fought really hard till a tooth got broken and saw it as fun though! I recall at the Trade Fair some boy bi from Kotobaabi 15 hit me at the back kpaaa. The Montesori boys started crying for me when me myself I was doing fine and happily clapping too. They called it assault. Cyto knows no assault oo. We know ‘ok333 mini’. That’s all!

Even the Montesori teachers had nicer names like Mr De-Graft Johnson and Ms Shiela Dunlop, Mrs Vineyard Gidibom. Come to Anunmle line. That’s when you hear teachers’ names like Chicha Atatsi, Mrs Gladys Akadongo, Mr Agbelima, Mrs Ganyaglo Amegayibor (meaning Black Boss)! The nicest name one was likely to find was ‘Mr Tetteh’!

For us, the underprivileged, just see us with our ‘apachi apaachi noko p3t3 kaya duna’ shorts! (torn knickers). Of course we were the Niggas in town! I remember how I found myself in the midst of some Montesori boys when my cyto colleagues were their somewhere playing all kinds of unnecessary games including fighting. I had gari wrapped in cement paper and put in my pocket for the ‘rainy day’. Squatting around Pavilion E (that was when Trade Fair was Trade Fair o). I could hear the sound of the crispy gari sipping down and the sound was like ‘yoooooooooo’.

That sound that you hear when the rains from the next town had started hitting the roof yet to get to your roof. Ehernnnn! Unfortunately for me, some boy bi from Greemhill International ‘uninvitedly’ came to draw my attention to the fact that my gari was pouring from my pocket. Ala! I disowned that gari that very moment. Whaaaat! Nothing annoyed me about this expository situation apart from the fact that inside the gari were palm kernels to match.

Those boys were convinced it was from my pocket but I swore it never belonged to me. Why should I accept it especially when everybody around me was eating jollof rice with chicken? Poverty is a crime!

God richly bless you, my favourite Bank GTT Bank for setting for the ICT Centre you handed over to my Alma Mater, Anunmle Cluster of Schools. But GTT Bank, on my birthday, you pipos only sent me a message saying ‘From Allofus! I called the line several times to ask of who ‘Mr Allofus’ was only to discover through my Relationship Manager, Leticia that it was simply ‘From... All of Us’ lumped together!

God bless you GTT Bank Management and Staff for selecting Anunmle, the School I am so proud of! Bring me money er…hahahahahaaaaaa!