MEMORIES OF BWARI - BAR 1 (2)

APPLICATION? MORE LIKE TORTURE.

I looked askance at the online application form. These people were actual nutters. They wanted a passport photo that was Xcm by Ycm by Gcircumference by argghhhhhh! I had been cropping and editing for about fifteen minutes and it still didn’t fit. I rang a friend of mine who was also going to be in law school with me.

‘Arese, am I thick or is this photo thing on the NLS website complete bollocks?’ I asked immediately she picked up the phone.

I heard her snort as she tried to stifle her sniggers. We were both at our respective workplaces so we had to be quiet.

‘Nwando, I don’t know for this school oh. I spent the whole night last night cropping it. It was a terrible ordeal.’ She replied.

‘Ugh,’ I groaned. The whole night? I wanted to sort this application form out asap and move on to the other stuff I had to do. Like contact my university for a transcript, get a notary public to sign and seal the form and the medical bit of the form; what on earth?

‘I don’t understand this medical bit. They want us to go to a government owned hospital to get our blood, pee and shit tested? And x-ray? Why? Are they mad?’ I asked in frustration.

This time Arese could not stifle her laugh successfully, ‘Babe, that’s not for here. We’re to do the tests in Nigeria in one of those state hospitals.’

‘Wonderful. I was even alright with NHS here. Now I have to do it there and probably get rabies while I’m at it.’

‘Ah ah, now. It’s not that bad. Anyway, we can always pay someone to do it for us.’

I nodded at this. Ahhh, the advantages of Nigeria. Granted, it’s terrible that the country is so corrupt and I had had very heated arguments with friends over bottles of plonk berating our corrupt motherland but at this point, I was in love with this rotten nature of ours. (Quick aside, when I got back to Nigeria and asked around for who I could pay to sort out the medical form, a mate of mine told me that he did not even leave his house to get it done. He paid a sum of money to a man and the next day he had everything ready. The blood, the pee, the poop, the xray…maybe they had got a dog or goat to do it because it had all looked dodgy. But hey, the form was accepted by the school!)

After twenty more minutes of groaning, cursing and cropping, I finally had the right photo up. One hurdle scaled, time for the rest. Suffice to say, it took me the whole day to get the application form filled properly especially as the day had been extremely hectic. I worked in a property law firm and someone was always trying to get a mortgage or rent or lease or buy a flat/house outrightly. As I was a paralegal, I was stuck with drafting and fielding calls and it was unbelievably stressful. I thrived on stress though so I did not particularly mind.

On this day, this stress was not being thrived upon. I was livid and short with the other paralegal I was training. I had not told the partners that I would be leaving soon and I did not know how to go about it. Further, I was thinking of how much money I was going to waste, I mean spend, on sending the completed application form by DHL to the law school in the back of beyond. And let’s not forget the numerous calls I was getting from the parents. Mother calling to remind me about the form (which I replied increasingly angrily that I was FILLING), father calling to tell me not to be rude to my mum and not paying attention when I explained that she was deliberately being obtuse, friends calling in shock because they did not believe that I was finally moving back. Me? Oyibo like me? How would I cope?

I did not need all of that and I switched off my phone for the rest of the day. A little bit of sanity.

I continued the next day. This time, I emailed my university for my transcript and wrote down more expenses I had to spend from MY money on something I did not want to do (oh, and this included getting the transcript dhled to law school separately. And academic references too). I called the dhl office and gulped to myself when I heard the cost. I googled round for notary public officers and massaged my temples when I heard the cost for that as well. This was going to be fun.

When everything was finally sorted out, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that that was done. I did not have to hear from my mother and cry and curse and hang up because she was clueless as to what it all entailed.

Or so I thought.

2 weeks later, round about a week before the deadline for submission of application forms, I got a call from one of my mother’s contacts at the law school that my forms had not arrived.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidicous! I had to go through the whole process again? I can honestly admit that I locked myself in the loo and cried for a good ten minutes. I had not yet begun law school and their incompetence had commenced.

Great.

MEMORIES OF BWARI - BAR 1 (1)

SO I'M MOVING BACK TO NIGERIA!?

'So I hear the application form for Nigerian Law School is out.'

I typed away at work, trying to surreptitiously talk to my mother on the phone without anyone noticing and also act like I was paying attention to what she was saying. I was not.

Or I wasn't until I heard, 'I've spoken to your father. He thinks you should come back for law school too. He told me to look into it for him.'

Screech! I got up mumbling to whoever was looking at me that I needed to pop to the loo. No one spared me a glance, by the way. I hid my phone in the sleeve of my jacket and scurried out of the open plan office.

Once I was safely ensconced in the disabled toilet, I shrieked into the phone, 'Do what? I'm not ready for that! I like my job. I don't want to move back! Even if I did, I don't want to go to school again. I'm tired of school.' I ended the last note on a wail.

My mother did not budge, 'Ndo (meaning sorry). That's what your father wants. You're moving back, eh? So check the law school website and see what it is you need to do. I'll help you from this end. I have to go now. I love you, bye.'

I stared at my phone blankly. This woman had just dropped a huge bomb and ended the phone conversation knowing I was not happy. Not in the slightest. I suddenly realised I did need to pee and did just that. As I washed my hands, I stared at my reflection thinking about moving back. I hated Nigeria. Not because it was a bad country, no no. It was just that I'd been away for so long and had left quite happily because of the freedom from my parents. My independence; glorious. And it was pretty epic - I had lived on my own for so long and done what I wanted to do. This pretty much involved going to the library for 14 novels in one go. Of course, partying and going for festivals and concerts were all part of it but the fact was that I was my own person. In Nigeria, this is not the case especially as a girl. You're not your person till you're married. Then you're more or less your husband's person regardless of whatever spin you want to put on it.

I digress. So I'd been working with this high street law firm for almost a year now and although it was work experience, I adored it. I wasn't getting paid apart from travel expenses but every other Friday, we headed to either Funky Buddha, Mayfair bar or both and proceeded to get hammered. Work and fun, bliss. Now I was going to have to pack it in instead of getting as much experience as I could then moving on to a better job.

I groaned out loud then made my way back to the office. I could not concentrate properly and I did get a few irritated looks from one of the Partners when she had to repeat herself more than once. As soon as I was done with work, I plugged my earphones in and blasted Bullet For My Valentine in order to block the thoughts of law school. I stared at the waiting Blackberry messages from my father and siblings who had, no doubt heard the news of my impending move. I was thankful that I was underground and did not have to respond just yet. I still needed time to think. The rumours I had heard from mates who had gone there years before spun round in my head: the strict lecturers, the power trip from the menial workers, the grading system of exams, the gruelling work process, the SUN oh God the sun, the dress code, the living environment considering the school was in the middle of a village; these thoughts spun through my mind as I sunk further into despair.

Back to school and not just school, but a shit school in Nigeria. Wonderful.

MEMORIES OF BWARI - BAR 1

INTRODUCTION

Nigerian Law School, Bwari. I think about this place with somewhat fond memories. The tears, the laughter, the anger, the depression...all the memories that were made. The friendships forged. Some for life, some for the duration of my tenure there. I remember how reluctant I was to go there; I was almost threatened into moving back to Nigeria for this because I had heard so many rumours about Law School. I went on twitter (lifesaver!) and realised there were a group of us going so I thought, hmmm this might actually be fun. And it was. So much fun, in fact.

Truth be told, I doubt I'll encourage anyone to go through it if they are not passionate about Law as a whole. I thought I was and now...let's just say I shan't be practising even though I'm done with law school and am now a Barrister (hurrah). However, if you are already on this path then my advice to you will be this: don't take law school seriously in Bar 1. Bar 2, by all means rupture your brain preparing for the exams - They are Horrendous. However that's a tale for another time. This is all about Bar 1 and my experiences there.

Enjoy xx