I was only 9 when I went to boarding school and it was hell.
Bullies, hunger and loneliness.
Cried every day.
Almost gave up.
Until one day someone out of the blues saw me by myself on the corridor and offered to allow me play with his stringed beetles.
Weird game I thought. And I hated hurting animals.
He promised me that it was a fun game and safe and that the beetles- he freed them after which was true. I did enjoy the game afterwards.
Although he did catch praying mantis and put them to battle causing them to decapitate one another- a fact I later found out and remonstrated with him.
I remember this guy asking me to go to the Masters Quarters upstairs and he bought us Snickers as we watched the bats quacking as they hung upside down from the fruit trees.
I then told him how I hated my dorm – D5
He offered to help me move to his dorm – D6 and speak with the prefects to allow it.
That dorm had sons of Nigerian generals Oyinlola and Omuya etc.and the now famous music star Cobhams.
The seniors in D5 never cared and after being made to make assurances by the seniors of D6 , I was allowed to move.
This was how I survived boarding school and got a will to live again.
We started my first company together – a game company within 2 years that because a rave in our boarding school.
In Senior High we would go on Saturday exeats to his estate which was in Victoria Island. Walk through all of the then rural areas of Lekki Phase 1 and buy puff puff at the swamp market at where the current Shoprite Victoris Islandis today.
He became a day student a few months after and our friendship drifted.
Today we reconnected and I got a chance to say thank you -15 years later. Thank you Onochie Ineh.
I am sure it was never a thing he remembered but I did and never forgot.
Life is a long memory – do your best to be remembered in the kind section.
Adebayo Alonge 