26/12/2020
“Get up, go and have your bath, and get ready for school”. It’s 5am in the morning, September 1982, I have just been given admission to Velos secondary commercial school, a popular high school in Ikom, cross river state of Nigeria, and my heart is overflowing with joy. But waking up by 5am for any reason is not my first choice of morning routines, yet my dad will have it no other way. So I get up, rubbed a half bar of duck soap on my head, and dash for the famous Ikom River for my morning dive. I get there, and though it was quite early and dark, the sedimentary rocked beach is littered with teenage boys and girls, jumping in the river with soap painted on their hair like they were engaged in a West Indian Religiious ritual. Everyone jumps in the cold flowing river, stays under water for a while, and pops up to rub their hand on their head making a foam out of the soap painted on their hair. Thirty minutes for some, and more for others whom, the joy of the early morning river bath overtakes, and they remain
