Vernon Mooers writes

THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVEYARD

chapter 11 (1)

Now Alex didn't even bother to go over to the main office until the middle of September. Only a few students had filtered into the hostels. Many had arrived in the area but were staying in the town. As always, it took awhile to get things going.

It was his second year now and he would have less work to do, less preparation. He was now familiar with the books to use, the British curriculum. He would have four classes in Form 5 for Math that would be enough to prepare them for the O Levels and some classes got two periods a day. So, he would have four to six periods to teach, depending on the day. The principal had already posted up the schedule. Quereshi would do the Form 5 Physics.

The grass had grown over the summer and the school workers had slashed a path into his house. He found a ten foot snake in the refuse bin at the front. The m'guardie said they'd killed it one day -- a King Cobra. The school compound was crawling with snakes in the rainy season. The maize was high in the fields and the lake on the edge of town was full of fishermen. There was plenty of food now, fresh vegetables and fish and fat on the cattle and goat meat.

The workers were making their way around the compound, spraying the eaves of the staff houses with insecticides. Alex checked all the screens and burglar bars. No one had broken in. He had to sweep the house free of sand and cobwebs and opened the windows and turned on the fans to air it out. Dead cockroaches lay in the bathtubs and in the sink. He scrubbed the counter and wiped the fridge and plugged it in. He went into the town, bought a refilled gas cylinder for the cooker, and stocked on packaged goods and got a flat of eggs from the veterinarian's office and filled the jerry cans with fresh water, all necessary rituals.

Grass cutting on the school compound took up the first week for the students. There were new teachers from the South, NYSC posted for the year, and also Mohammed Ahmed, a Pakistani who'd arrived and moved into the staff house next door. His family was to come later. Abba Hassan was still the principal, but a new vice had arrived, a tall Kanuri man from Gashua who had just graduated college in Kano. It was clearly another political appointment.

Anyway, he had his own work to do. This year he was also a House Master, in charge of one of the hostels, and got an extra allowance for it. He chased them to class, threatening with a stick those who slept in, banging it on the edge of their metal beds. The students had all been conditioned to jump when a stick was carried, mostly likely from so many beatings. Alex carried one like a swagger stick on Saturday mornings, inspection day for the hostels. So did each of the prefects in his House, ordering the kids in the lower forms to sweep the sand around the hostels and clean the bathrooms. It was a pyramid system. He accepted it now. When the younger ones got up to the higher Forms did were prefects they would do it too. Regardless, the jobs of grass cutting and sweeping and cleaning and fetching firewood for the kitchens got done that way. There was a sense of order.

They had not had a food riot at his school. Abba Hassan was a smart principal. He did not siphon off bags of semovita or sacks of rice to sell in the town like others. Some administrators had the cook sell off the rice in the market, ration what was left at the school and force the school to close early because of a riot or the danger of one. Abba Hassan might have the school video and a generator in his house, but he did not tolerate his staff selling off any food. He had a new Volvo at his house and air conditioning in two rooms. He wanted no part of riots.

Alex respected and thank him for that. In fact, they had had to close early last term because of the danger of an uprising by the Muslim students society. The MSS were radical in all the schools. With only two exams left, they had gathered outside the school mosque last June and threatened a demonstration if the female students were not allowed to pray with them. Many of the female students had started foregoing their head-ties and draping them over their heads. "We know the religion better than them," Abba Hassan had said and closed the school. Alex thought the students were just avoiding the pressure of exams but a riot between the Muslims and Christians that week had left two dead policemen over in Gashua.

This year Alex hoped there would be no issue the students would get up in arms about. Abba Hassan was a good principal. He had a string of informers in his Prefects and would keep lots of food in the school. He thought the students would probably tell him if there was going to be any trouble and he could get off the compound and go to Jeannie's house at the WTC, miles away at the other end of town. At least there was one other Bature in his posting so he was lucky in that they could both depend on one another in time of need. He was thankful for that. If something happened to him there, Jeannie could always get word to the CUSO Rep, go to the embassy in Lagos or even the British Consulate in Kano. They would both make sure the other received the medical treatment needed if either get sick. There was security in having another Canadian close by.

The term progressed fairly quietly. Abba Hassan ruled with an iron hand. He had the school sergeant cane misbehaving students with a donkey whip regularly on the stage at assemblies. "If you show any sign of weakness, you are dead," the principal confided in him. "That is why I'm still a principal and I will still be alive ten years from now." One of the students had told him the students had threatened to kill the last principal who'd transferred out quickly. But Abba Hassan showed no sign of weakness.

It was still very lonely in the evenings. Alex kept a thermos of hot water on the table, with a tin of milk, Nescafe and a box of sugar cubes. The students seldom come to the staff houses, except for Shafeeq who had them fetching water and sweeping his porch. Bella, the wife of Baba the cook, now living in his boys quarters out back, was busy with her cooking. Rhythmically, she pounded yams and maize off and on all day, but her husband, when not working, was in the town on his machine, socializing and buying fresh food at the market. Sometimes Bella came and asked for cold water or ice and Alex would give her a bottle. Otherwise, it was quiet at night and there was lots of time to think. He'd listen to BBC World Service he could get it to come in, put on a cassette or walk down the road to the railway station to pick up some small item from the vendors there. Merely to get out, watch the train unload, take in the scene, and the vendors, who had tables set up there by the tracks, were always friendly, would greet him "Sannu Bature" and ask how he was.

Once, Mohammed Ahmed had dropped over. Alex had just bought Tree Top from the railway tables, a drink which came in lemon, orange and lime flavours. He'd poured a cold glass for the both of them. Mohammed Ahmed had said it was too strong, too sweet. It was only the next day that it sunk in, when he read "Dilute with water" in tiny print on the label. He had felt like a fool.

Sometimes Dr. Quereshi would come over and they'd play a couple of games of chess. Quereshi was very shrewd. He'd gotten a Ph.D. by correspondence from some non-descript school named "Oak Ridge College" in the States. Alex had seen his thesis, only sixty pages, on nuclear energy. But he was on a Level 12 salary grid because of it.

He'd confronted Quereshi in the staff room about the schedule and they'd shoved one another, almost got into a fight then. Quereshi came over in the evening and apologized and tried to explain he got nothing out of the headache making up the class schedule except for a few classes off. Alex knew he'd been putting down two sections for Physics and two for Chemistry, then just combining the classes.

Alex left it alone. He knew Quereshi had to put up with everyone protesting their course load and he knew he wouldn't make up the schedule for altruistic reasons. Jeannie had said Mrs. Quereshi was in charge of Home Ec at the WTC and had half the cloth, a sewing machine, and even provisions at her house. That was how they did things. Quereshi was a good chess player. Alex had been surprised, thinking Third World people weren't as smart when it came right down to it. "Chess was invented in India originally," Quereshi told him, "usually elephants instead of knights."

Dr. Quereshi played aggressively, wallowing in glory when he won battles and, as always, beat Alex three out of five. Once, Alex had caught him having moved a piece when he'd gone to the washroom. Quereshi kept him on his toes.