What are they learning in school?

8 March 2011, 2100hrs

Traffic moving at 20

Janelle Monae crooning from the radio

Cruising home

I catch a glimpse of people on the sidewalk

I look again

What?

JHS? pupils clad in their uniforms and backpacks

Looks like they are from school

I muse, what on earth are they learning till this late?

Unless 1 + 1 is no longer 2,

Unless ‘subjects’ and ‘verbs’ no longer have to agree

Unless plants no longer use photosynthesis

They are just skiving in school…for 12hrs.

Maa will always find out...

I was but a mere child, mischievous and impish when Maa gave me a strict warning never to eat alewa*. I had tried tiny bits of it from the other kids in the neighbourhood and I loved it. It was sickly sweet and it kind of popped when you sucked on it real hard and it left your tongue pink! Ah, delightful. I had some pennies from uncles and aunties over last Christmas and I desperately craved the evil sweet. So my brother and I devised a plan- buy and eat the alewa while Maa is at work. By the time she gets home, the telltale pink tongue would be gone and we’d be home dry! Yay! High five! So we skipped to the lady at the junction, purchased our lives savings worth of alewa and gobbled it all down. An uneventful evening passed, then came bath time the next morning. I groggily stepped into the white ceramic bath. Ooh cold! I huddled in the corner while Maa did the ritual ‘sssss’ sound to coax the wee out of my sleepy self. I did wee, only it was a bright PINK! Two sharp smacks to my back jolted me out of my slumber into shrieking reality. I since then gave alewa only a cursory glance anytime I saw it.


*[aláywa] a locally made sweet from sugar and colour. Its long, pink and kind of has tiny bubbles in it like an Aero, but are smaller.