I fell from the top bed and crushed my head on a chop-box because in my dream one night all that I could hear was the irritating loud voice of Senior Tompo, calling out all first year students to appear once.
“All form ones get down and appear at once….” This was the siren that woke us every morning when it was 4:00 on the dot. To move from the third floor of the boys dormitory to the entrance of the story building was another test of our call to duty. While some jumped the staircase others flew without wings.
Senior Tompo was a giant and a glance at him could only caution you not to mess with his orders. Even his own final year students feared him and never wanted to challenge his tyrant orders coupled with the fact that he doubled as a sanitation prefect.
Waking up before 4:00am was my prayer each night I grabbed my pillow to catch a sleep because the punishment of those who failed to attend to Tompo’s siren was unpleasant.
The good part of all this was that, after spending a week at the boarding school, I was used to the environment and each time he came to wake us up, I was up already, washed, dressed and ready in class learning while I hear his screaming from afar.
I will start my day by learning ahead of my class, reading in-between lines and preparing the relevant questions that will be thrown at my teachers just to make sure I well understood all that was taught in class that day. I repeated this routine daily throughout my first year and this made me a brilliant student.
When I got to the second year, Senior Tompo was no more in the boarding house, he has completed but the fear he created still lived on in me and I was even up before the first years were up to take on their chores. This again made me more popular in my class but few people knew me in the boys dormitory.
10 years later, I met Senior Tompo in Accra, looking weak and lacking. I approached him with a big smile and hugged him. I am a lawyer and he is a taxi driver in a suburb of Accra I wouldn’t disclose.
When I asked him if he recognized me, he said “No”. I smiled because he knew every male student on campus so was a bit surprised. Fortunately, it was his daily routine that was shaping the daily routine of the poor boy who had the dream. In the absence of my dad, he was my dad at school who never knew his son.
I went to my car as he watched me amazed and wondering where he knows me. I handed a brown envelope over to him. The brave Tompo was now shy collecting just an envelope. Since it wasn’t sealed, he open it and saw what was in it. Tompo started shouting again! “Oseey thank you! thank you!”
Sometimes, some people ignorantly live their lives the way they do as a sacrifice just to bring out the best in others.
#SammyGenfi #SammyGyamfi #sammygenfi #TableShaker
