“…’Jeff is like a school father to me. He has been taking care of me since I entered school.
As a fresher, I was confused and wandering around before I met Jeff and he helped put me through all the registration processes. He helped me secure a hostel and most importantly, he makes sure that I do not enter into the wrong hands’.
That was Damzy trying to explain who the soft spoken fresh uncle was. All she was saying fell on deaf ears.
Apparently, Jeff was one of those non-academic staff members that usually work at the Lab. Unmarried fresh boys with soft jobs, fair salaries and plenty of time to spare.
What you would easily describe as eligible bachelors. That’s who is my Damzy’s school father and she wants me to pay attention and understand her? No way!
I remained uncomfortable with that school father – school daughter relationship because na cunny cunny na im person wey go buy snuff dey take enter inside market.
Despite not approving their friendship, I still accepted for Jeff to help me through the registration processes because meeeehn!
What those Angelus-Praying women at the faculty and departmental offices made me pass through was more than hell.
They were not just mean, wicked and nonchalant, they were also vindictive as if we had known each other before and I did something bad to them or that I was the one that killed them in their previous lives.
I couldn’t explain how those women could harbour such enormous bitterness in them.
Yet, once it’s 12:00 noon, they pause everything and say the Angelus, and then continue their wickedness until it’s 3:00pm, then they say the divine mercy prayers.
So, even if it means swallowing my pride, I would do it to avoid meeting those women. So I allowed Jeff to help me and in less than one week, he was through.
The next battle was how to get a hostel. Ladies and gentlemen. It was tough.
I was born during Biafran Genocide, but following the stories I have heard and read, the struggle of getting a hostel space in UNN was greater than the struggle of getting Okporoko (stock fish) and milk from NGOs during the Biafran Genocide.
Getting a hostel was not for the weak.
If you even see the hostel sef, you will feel like vomiting, and wonder if people actually live there.
Well, I didn’t succeed in getting a hostel space and I didn’t inform Jeff on time, so I either had to go to school from home or rent a lodge nearby.
After spending 2 years at home, there was no way I was going to remain in that house. On the other hand, there was no way my father was going to pay for a lodge when our house was 1 hour trek away from UNN or 10 minutes drive/ride.
So I had to squat with one of my secondary school classmates who was then in 3rd year.
Damzy stayed in the female hostel which was a thousand times cleaner, newer, and generally better than the male hostel.
So, after that, I was then ready to start school in earnest.
You know, there’s a street saying that you can be the most beautiful girl in your street, but when you enter the university, you will find out that you are not even beautiful.
Well, there are some things I didn’t know about the courses I was admitted to study.
One of them was that I didn’t know mathematics and calculations were a major part of psychology.
The second was that I didn’t know that psychology department was the Den of beautiful girls.
So while Damzy met her Jeff, I also met my…
Find out in the next episode.
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(CAMPUS LIFE, Season 2; Episode 2) was brought to you by Ugwuagbo Emmanuel Chizoba Daniel (Zoba De Great)