JOSHUA sat up, pulling his legs inwards. Then he pulled himself closer to his mother as Oki lent him her ears.
‘Mother, you know I just finished school?’ the young man started.
‘But the problem is, I didn’t finish – I found out that I’ve just started! I mean... after Standard Grade!’
Oki didn’t know standard grade, but she’d thought her son could land a job then. So she asked, ‘How’s that so?’
She felt they’d been tricked. Scammed, to say it modern.
‘The schools I went to are the beginner classes,’ answered the son. ‘That is what I learnt. Now I’ll have to go on to High School to do more.’
He dubbed that form in their language—so high stayed high...
As ’Ẹkọ Giga meant High Form.
Now Oki got that phrase in their native tongue, Yoruba; so Bamiji hit the nail.
‘But Ma’mi...!’ he stressed. ‘There is yet Higher Learning after that one! And things keep getting higher. Too high I want to stop!’
He’d gone comparative on the ‘high’ word, and then stopped.
‘But I really want to do book! Really, ma’a mi!’
The mother was touched at this point. She felt his son’s dream and the drive... and somehow knew this was it. That it was destiny.
So the elder prayed: ‘And you shall, Jo-shu-a!’
Joshua shook the head. ‘No, ma’mi – it’s high school!
‘But there’s one in Oyo Town. It’s about the closest to us, and it’s one prestigious school.
‘I learnt it was built by the same American mission which runs our church.
‘They call the school, Olivet. I really like to go, but it’s quite expensive. It’s a boarding school.’
Oki bowed her head in thought. She dropped no words... just the gaze.
‘I can’t pick up my tools now to farm the land,’ Banji went on. ‘I just want to learn, but where’s the fund?!
‘I could have asked Father—.’
‘You father has little money these days,’ shot the mother, raising her gaze.
‘You know the farmland’s been dying, so he left much ground to fallow.
‘So, it is good you didn’t tell your father. He won’t like to hear that now.’
Banji acquiesced, but Oki wasn’t done.
‘But then, son, when you started school, I went all round asking about this life.
‘So I was told it is easier than farming. That it yeilds bigger returns – and faster, in fact!’
The 22-year-old smiled. ‘I know, Mother. I have heard the same things.’
Oki was the fiercer one. ‘No son, you don’t know! Let me tell you!
‘I was told that if you finish this early stage – and which you’re done with already, you can get a good paying job better than farming!
‘Lemme show you—!’
The middle-aged lady got up and went to her chamber. She got back the next moment with a small piece of paper.
She handed it to the boy.
‘Read it—everything is in there. Then tell me back in our language!’
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