No Separate Peace - Excerpt from Vol II, Ch. 34: Birth of a Nation
The following morning Sylvester Ogajawa spoke to the student body in the assembly hall. “Good morning, Biafran students!” he said, with a controlled – or perhaps contrived – level of high energy.
He received an exuberant response, “Good morning, sah.” He told them that he was waiting forthe Ministry of Education to deliver copies of the Biafran national anthem, as well as a flag of Biafra. When that happens, they will resume singing the anthem at assembly and select a day to have a special flag raising ceremony.“We are in a new country,” he said, “but we still have the old bureaucratic delays.
Ogajawa was in a chatty mood. I didn’t understand all of his jokes, as some had a cultural basis unknown to me, but they were calibrated to raise the level of attention in what was usually a murmuring assemblage of half-awake teenage boys. He was striding back and forth across the front of the stage, gesticulating like a madman – but everyone knew there was a method to his madness. When he finally had the students laughing at virtually everything he said, he stopped centre stage and looked toward the ceiling and said, “One day, if you hear something in the sky and look up and see an airplane flying low, you will not be able to take your eyes off it. For airplanes are beautiful and you don’t see many in our skies . . . Then if you notice that it has dropped something, something is falling from the plane, what will you do?”
Catching his drift, some students began to laugh. “What will you do? Will you run toward it? Maybe it is a gift for you! Maybe you can catch it in your arms!” By now everyone was laughing, but they knew what he meant. They would have to pay attention to life, not just to their studies. There would be no separate peace for Government College Umuahia. “What I have said to you this morning,” he said, in conclusion, “you must say to your younger brothers and sisters. There will be no wonderful gifts dropping from the skies . . . ."
That evening Louanne and I went for a walk about the campus before dinner. Most of the teachers had already planted food crops – yam, cassava, maize – on their front and back lawns, as had Peter on ours. We stopped for a few moments by the football field to watch the burgeoning volunteer militia, over a thousand strong, going through their drills. The only person in an actual military
uniform was the young teacher who ran the school’s cadet corps. He was directing the exercise – actually just a series of marching drills. There were several women in the group. We discerned a number of my teaching colleagues, including Dr. Patel from India. He saw us as his line, seven or eight strong, made its “right wheel”. He looked frail, incongruous and plucky. Among them also, wearing shorts and sandals, was Peter, whose father-in-law had fought fo the British in Burma. Now the British were on the other side. Peter too saw us, as he turned.
They were marching with rifle-length wooden sticks.
The following morning Sylvester Ogajawa spoke to the student body in the assembly hall. “Good morning, Biafran students!” he said, with a controlled – or perhaps contrived – level of high energy.
He received an exuberant response, “Good morning, sah.” He told them that he was waiting forthe Ministry of Education to deliver copies of the Biafran national anthem, as well as a flag of Biafra. When that happens, they will resume singing the anthem at assembly and select a day to have a special flag raising ceremony.“We are in a new country,” he said, “but we still have the old bureaucratic delays.
Ogajawa was in a chatty mood. I didn’t understand all of his jokes, as some had a cultural basis unknown to me, but they were calibrated to raise the level of attention in what was usually a murmuring assemblage of half-awake teenage boys. He was striding back and forth across the front of the stage, gesticulating like a madman – but everyone knew there was a method to his madness. When he finally had the students laughing at virtually everything he said, he stopped centre stage and looked toward the ceiling and said, “One day, if you hear something in the sky and look up and see an airplane flying low, you will not be able to take your eyes off it. For airplanes are beautiful and you don’t see many in our skies . . . Then if you notice that it has dropped something, something is falling from the plane, what will you do?”
Catching his drift, some students began to laugh. “What will you do? Will you run toward it? Maybe it is a gift for you! Maybe you can catch it in your arms!” By now everyone was laughing, but they knew what he meant. They would have to pay attention to life, not just to their studies. There would be no separate peace for Government College Umuahia. “What I have said to you this morning,” he said, in conclusion, “you must say to your younger brothers and sisters. There will be no wonderful gifts dropping from the skies . . . ."
That evening Louanne and I went for a walk about the campus before dinner. Most of the teachers had already planted food crops – yam, cassava, maize – on their front and back lawns, as had Peter on ours. We stopped for a few moments by the football field to watch the burgeoning volunteer militia, over a thousand strong, going through their drills. The only person in an actual military
uniform was the young teacher who ran the school’s cadet corps. He was directing the exercise – actually just a series of marching drills. There were several women in the group. We discerned a number of my teaching colleagues, including Dr. Patel from India. He saw us as his line, seven or eight strong, made its “right wheel”. He looked frail, incongruous and plucky. Among them also, wearing shorts and sandals, was Peter, whose father-in-law had fought fo the British in Burma. Now the British were on the other side. Peter too saw us, as he turned.
They were marching with rifle-length wooden sticks.
