One fateful Rag Day

Coming from Oshodi this morning I noticed some young ladies dressed in awkward and funny rag-like attires with painted faces and I knew immediately that they were students on rag-day. The line-yard on which they suspended their ID card confirmed my guess. They remind me of a particular day in the college which I have refused to forget. Asides the little decorum in the students’ dressing and the glee in the ladies make-up there was nothing different from several other rag-days I’ve seen students engage in. The only thing that time has washed away from the fun is the jingle. We use to pack coins in the branded cans that we juggle as we moved about seeking cheerful givers to the students’ cause.

The incidence I want to recount happened about 15 years ago. I was a first year student in the college of education and I had promised never to deny myself any of the fun that higher institution presented, except for cultism. So I had a girlfriend, I joined students discuss, I contested and won students association offices, I joined the press, I visited the library, skipped lectures,  sang, danced, joined the Red Cross, attended social and religious gatherings and all others that caught my fancy; and of course, I went for the rag-day.

I was living in the same hostel with an area sister and other friends, mostly from Ibadan. So, when the guys suggested that we go to Ibadan for the rag-day I was all in for the fun and the prospect of higher earning from the ‘Aro’ endeavour. We left for Ibadan dressed in rags, or what we’ve made our clothes to become. We turned our shirts inside out, painted our faces in talc and with powdered coal. I was dressed in a white shirt with the left arm ripped off and the other sleeve folded up my arm. I wore a sandal on my right foot and a tattered shoe on the left, it’s a pity I never had a snapshot in those bizarre dressing. We all packed at least a t-shirt for change at the end of the day. All the spare shirts were cramped in a small ‘shuttle’ bag which one of us strapped to his back as part of the ‘crazy’ dressing.

Once we alighted at Ojoo, we headed for Orita Merin, a busy part of the capital city with about three or four adjoining markets. We were all trooping together, until at a point somebody suggested that we split up and converge at the ‘Itamerin’ after about an hour. The market was so large and complex that I found it hard making a mental note of the shops and shed which all look alike. I navigated several paths and visited several market women some of whom dropped old coins into the hungry throat of my can piggy-bank. I was not sure whether I overstayed the one hour mark we set, or I missed the junction where we were meant to converge. Or better still, the other guys forgot that I was unfamiliar with Ibadan.  In a nutshell, I waited for about three more hours around the big market roaming at first and later asking if the people sighted other students dressed like I was. Before long, I was beginning to cast the figure of a nuisance, so I decided to move on. But, to where? I had no spare shirt.

I remembered that one of my hostel mate said he stayed in Apata area of Ibadan. During one of the usual discussion in the hostel, he said is house was bordered by a new shopping complex with a shoe maker shed at the junction. I pried open my can and picked the few Naira notes in it, I headed for Apata. To my utter dismay Apata was not a small locality, there were several junctions and many shopping complexes. I was confused, and at that point I became very tired. Just then, I remembered that my friend and secondary school classmate, Gbenga Olatunde was studying at the college of Agric around Apata, I headed for his school. Remember, there was no GSM then. After several inquiries I located my friend and he was happy but surprised to see me. He mocked me a while and offered me food. I layed on his bed to relax a little before I decide on what next to do. 

I woke up 6 a.m the following morning.I was so weak, but the fact that I've slept through the night baffled me, I was asleep for about 12 hours. The rag-day was over but I was still dressed in my rags. I headed for the car pack with the hope of catching an early bus back to Oyo but there was none around. As such, I must get to Ojoo or Iwo road before I could get a bus to Oyo. After begging about a hundred drivers I got a free ride to Sango. The ride was one of the most humiliating in my life. I sat on the engine compartment and all the passengers saw me as a dirty beggar, or so I think. They made condescending remarks and hissed all through the short journey.

I had 19 pieces of N1 coins in my can but the fare to Oyo from Sango was N20, then. After much persuasion I reached an arrangement with the driver to give him the N1 balance when we got to Oyo, which I did, for my house was just by the road side.

Most of my hostel-mates came back to school the following day, but I fell sick immediately I alighted from the bus. I couldn't stand up for two days. It appeared that all of us went our separate ways and got back to school separately. My area sister who did not follow us on the 'pilgrimage' asked of me and the guys could not give a cogent answer. They assumed I was with one of them but the bubble burst when the last man returned and I was not in his company. They got scared!

On the third day, I got up and out. As I sat watching the traffic I noticed some people peeping from behind a building across the road and the faces and movement appeared familiar. It was my friends trying to spy maybe I was home or thinking of how to tell my mum I was missing. They could not sight me from their position but I was seeing them. After a while, they sent my girlfriend to stroll by.

"E kasan ma" she greeted my mum who had sensed her discomfort from afar.

"Ah! Sisi mi bawo ni? How are you?" my mum greeted her.

She hesitated for a while, grinning like a kid trying to laugh it's way through an act (we use to call her laughing gas, back in the secondary school). My mum did not helped her plight as she kept quiet looking at her with an intense so-what-can-I-do-for-you gaze. I was almost bursting with laughter as I watched her from behind the window blind. 

"I just said I should say hello to you, I was just passing by" Nike said after a while.

"Oh! That's good. So who are your friends you were peeping with from across" she asked. Nike was taken aback, she did not expect such question.

"No o, I was just.."

'Just what?' my mum interrupted her.

"Yinka is inside o. I know that's why you are here. And greet Odun for me o, So pe won ku itoju wa o"

At that point I stepped out and I could feel a greet wave of relief flush through the poor girl. She gave me a scolding look and dragged me away. I returned to school the following week to opprobrium from my hostel mates and neighbours.

It was one event in my life I don't think I'll forget in haste, at least not when those bizarre-dressed boys and girls run around town on rag-day.