Chapter Two
Ummi tries to narrate her preparation for university education and shares her experiences of more than twenty years with the children, especially Omar, who is preparing to go to university. The people of Lafayette were happy that Ummi was going to university.
Her father agreed on the condition that she got married before graduation. Her husband then agreed that they should get married before she did her registration in the university.
Ummi shares her experiences in the university. Ranging from the carefree attitudes of the students where everybody goes about their business freely to the dressing in the university community where there is no uniform as in secondary schools. Omar interrupts her mum here to confirm his wearing a uniform in the university.
His mum explains that he is an exception being a law student. That his faculty has a dress code during classes which is black trousers or skirt as the case may be and white shirts with black neckties. Bunmi tries to explain to the children here that there is no uniform in the university, the law faculty only have a dress code. She comments that it makes the law students unique in the university environment.
She also calls the attention of Omar to the obscene way the girls dress on campus. Bint tries to compare her school with university on dressing. Ummi the mother then reminds her that her own school is a primary school. Omar says the belief of Bint is that discipline and decency should be permanent of human character.
Ummi continues with her experience with one of her school mates named Salma Mohammed. Salma was a fair complexioned girl, tall, slim and very busty. She always wears tight fitting clothes and puts on dark sunshades. She was always attractive to the young men around but the old school ladies pretended not having interest in her.
She said they were at the faculty registration office one day waiting for one of their lecturers for some time. When the lecturer eventually came, he was still taking time to attend to them.
Salma, who came barely fifteen minutes and was the last person on the line, started complaining about the lecturers and the registration officers. She said they were inconsiderate and heartless.
A young man on the queue then addressed her politely that some of them have been there before and were not complaining but to wait for the lecturer to get ready to attend to them.
Salma then said that she knew the lecturers better, that they could keep them waiting till evening doing nothing. She compared them with the police that stop people for flimsy excuses; for bribes and for the people to keep their company till the next vehicle arrives.
She even concluded that the police were better than the lecturers; the police could release you when they are bribed, but would not understand your plight with the lecturers. They would ask a boy for money and date a girl.
Salma continues by citing the lecturer whom she said was inside doing nothing and referred to him as a monkey as an example. She said if she had the opportunity, she would just go in and give the lecturer two or three thousand naira and he would attend to her immediately.
The young man asked him if she was sure of what she was saying. She removed her sunshades and told the man that she understood the lecturers better, that that’s not her first university. She added again that money moves mountains.
The young man then turned his attention to the other students to address them. He urged them to allow Salma to go in first and meet the lecturer for the registration to start. They all bought the idea and said “yes.”
At that instance, a man came out of the office with a wet duster in his hand. He locked the office and told the young man that the office was ready. The man that came out of the office with a duster was a cleaner named John, while the young man that had been engaging Salma was the lecturer waiting for.
Everybody was silent and were baffled when the lecturer apologised for keeping them waiting while the office was being cleaned. Salma was already shaking like a rain drenched chicken. The lecturer then told them to maintain orderliness as he goes to the office. He said they would soon be done with the screening exercise.
Salma became dumb and was shivering. She was just gazing at the designs of her shoes. That’s where Ummi left her to complete her screening exercise which took no time and went to the department for her matriculation number.
She said Salma was not seen until a few months into the semester. Teemah is elated that she bursts into laughter, but her mum told them to wait till she narrates the scenes at her departmental registration.
…….
When Ummi gets to the departmental office, she is ushered into the H.O.D’s office. The HOD’s name is Dr. Samuel Johnson. She knocks on the door and she is told to come in. She is surprised that the H.O.D is also a young man.
The man later looks up from what he was writing and Ummi sees the tribal marks on his cheeks. This tells her that he would either be an Igala or Yoruba man. The cross on the necklace also reveals that he is a Christian.
Ummi introduces herself as a new student that came for her matriculation number. The man asks her to sit down. She sits on the visitor’s chair. Ummi stressed a moral principle here that it is not ideal for somebody to sit until called upon in a person’s office, even if there are a hundred vacant seats.
Ummi is not comfortable with the man referring to her as “my dear.” Her belief is that the man meant something. Selma’s comments about the lecturers now fills her heart and she is now more alert. The man said Ummi was among the first students to report for registration.
He asked for her name and she gave her name as Ummi Ahmad. He wrote the information obtained from Ummi down as they were analogue then. He asked whether Ummi would like to drink something. Ummi said no and thanked him.
This offer of a drink from the HOD makes Ummi claustrophobic; she developed the fear of being in a small confined place. She is pessimistic of what might follow. She is there for registration. Why should the HOD offer her a drink?
She immediately wants to tell him that she is married, but she changes her mind. She expresses another lesson of life here; one should never volunteer information unless specifically asked.
The man comments that Ummi looks beautiful and decent in her attire. He then stands up to sit on the sofa near the visitor’s chair that Ummi sits on. She becomes more uncomfortable wondering why the man wants to open conversation with her when she just came for her matriculation number.
Salma’s comments about the lecturers now ring in her brain that all lecturers are the same. If you are a boy they ask you for money, and if you are a girl they ask you for a date.
She asks herself why the man would be interested in her since she is not exposing her body though her face is opened. She remembers the submission of her husband and her that an immoral man would always misbehave no matter what the woman wears.
The man continues, commending her dressing and that he wishes the students emulate her style of dressing. He adds that he hopes Ummi is as intelligent as her appearance. Ummi is confused here; she sees the man as a responsible man but confused with his utterances.
She fathoms no meaning to the expression from the man; “you are better than I imagined.” Ummi looks for all possible means of leaving the office, she then requests for her matriculation number and lies that she is pressed.
The man responds that Ummi is free to use his toilet, but Ummi declines that it is not allowed. The man tells her that it is allowed that it is his office and unless she is not pressed in the first instance. Ummi then summons courage, enters the toilet and comes out a few seconds later after flushing the toilet to satisfy the man.
She thereafter makes up her mind that she would leave the office with or without the matriculation number. The man is now on his seat writing something in the file in front of him. He then gives the matriculation number to her. Her number is UG0001. The man prays that as she is the first to come to him, she would be the first in everything.
Ummi, still annoyed, leaves the office and reluctantly thanks the HOD who was smiling. The man sends his secretary to go and tell her that she would have to go to the 100 Level coordinator for further registration.
Bint at this juncture asks her mother why she was angry. Ummi couldn’t even tell why she was angry then. She responds that the man didn’t do anything that warranted her anger. She adds that she is even more angry at herself now than at the man that time. The registration goes on smoothly after that and she takes a tricycle home around four o’clock. Bint asks what a tricycle is, Teemah replies that it’s Keke Napep.
When she gets home, her husband has not arrived. She just prepared his food and had her bath. While Ummi waits for her husband to finish eating his food before she narrates her experiences on her first day in the university, a statement that comes out of him is, “you just can’t be too sure with people these days.”
Ummi requests to know the reason for that utterance. Her husband replies that it is a long story about their neighbour. The man is said to be quiet and couldn’t harm a fly.
Ummi interrupts, saying that that reminds her of her experience at the office of the HOD that day. Her husband apologises for not having asked her about the school. Ummi narrates her experiences on the queue with Salma’s incidents as well as the experience at the HOD’s office. She narrates everything without living out anything including her anger.
It is a great surprise for Ummi that the HOD is her husband’s friend, in fact he helps in the processing of her admission to the university according to her husband. Her husband identifies him as Dr. Samjohn and a Yoruba man.