Keeping up Appearances
A memory came to my head a few days ago and stayed with me. It was sometime in early 2013. I was serving Nigeria as a corps member in Yola, Adamawa State, under the mandatory National Youth Service Corps program for fresh graduates. I had been deployed to the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) and a lodge was made available for corps members like me. There were just two girls (from my batch) who were assigned to the school. We joined two other girls who were a batch ahead of us, bringing our total to four. Technically, there were two lodges; one for men and the other for women. Ours was a four bedroom flat that used to be the Principal’s quarters. As years went by and the building began to crumble because of lack of use, it was converted into an abode for female corps members. Since there were four of us at that point, each of us had our own room. Now let us go to the memory. That year, I had become deeply religious and immersed in learning more about the Christian God. I was carefully cutting out things from my life that I felt didn’t glorify Him. This meant that I was trying to do right, speak right and generally, live right. It was so bad that I even cut out songs that weren’t gospel music from my life. Anyone who knows me knows that it was one of the hardest things I had to do. Anyway, I didn’t just want to do right. I wanted to be seen to do right. I didn’t join conversations that tore people down or promoted what I termed vulgar. I stopped partying and began my descent into near reclusion. I continued to have male friends but I made sure it was knownthat it was just platonic. In the past, I would have given people the illusion that I was involved with all my male friends. It gave me a thrill to see people wonder what I was about. But my new way of life meant that I didn’t want to be perceived as that person anymore. It was at this point that I met another corps member. He was a young man who was, for lack of a better phrase, a ‘bad boy’. Let me call him Wale. You see, among ‘believers’ then, if you smoked cigarettes and weed like Wale did, you were termed a bad boy. To make matters worse, Wale only listened to rap music with explicit lyrics, and was constantly downing bottles of codeine-laced cough syrup. If I had met him before my ‘journey to spirituality’, he would have been my type of person. We would have hit it off and being just peachy. At that point however, I didn’t want to be friends. And worse than that, I didn’t want to be seen as his friend. But he didn’t get the memo. When I stopped visiting or communicating as often, he decided to take up the responsibility. He would call, text and visit. He would be talking about the music I was tryingto remove from my life and wondering when we could go out to a club for drinks. Sometimes, I would try to avoid him and at other times, I would just go with the flow. It was during one of these visits that he told me he was having problems with his landlord and didn’t know what to do. I was worried because, as ‘gangsta’ as he showed he was, I knew he was from a privileged home and he didn’t have a lot of experience handling things by himself. I asked what he was going to do and he said he would figure it out. One night about a week later, he arrived at my door unannounced. I asked if all was well and he said he had been kicked out of the house where he had been staying. He had hopped from place to place and was at a loss as to where to stay. I went into panic mode and began to knock on doors at the male lodge asking if they could put him up for a couple of days. The male quarters were already cramped and many said they couldn’t. One guy however, who (incidentally) was one of the nastiest persons I had met in a while, said he would take him in; even though I had been loath to ask. The next day, I asked Wale what he was going to do about his situation. The fact that he didn’t serve in our school meant he couldn’t stay for long. Also, we were expecting new corps members. His problem had to be solved by his own place of primary assignment. It was while discussing this that I realized he had burned bridges at that place of assignment. A lot of it was hinged on his habits but the most part was because he was a bit of a loner and his people skills were almost nonexistent. In about a week, the guy helping him out decided he was done. He had assumed (correctly) that my friend was from a rich family and thought it was his opportunity to fleece him. When Wale had given away almost all he could without going under, the horrible corps member kicked him out of the house. This happened at about 9pm. Wale came to my door to let me know what was happening. I was worried. I knew no one else would take him in. And then it occurred to me that I had my room, which was big, had two mattresses and could be his abode for the night. However, as soon as the thought came to my head though, a part of me said no. Almost immediately, my brain went into overdrive. What would happen if he slept in my room? For one, I would
