I've not put up a mono image for sometime and not one from Nigeria, so today I've decided to go back to a passion, my photo journal of Lagos.
Remember the days when we used to walk home from school and "gist" about how Mrs Okeke just bought a new car in, or how Mr Samuel gave Kofi and big slap for coming in late or how we are going to get our report cards next week, yup memories.
For those of you that schooled in Nigeria what's your take on the educational system there, lets' discuss that today.
awon omo ile iwe!
my yoruba sucks,but you get my drift I hope.
Yeah,schooling in Nigeria was fun.i remember my lesson teacher in primary school.He was from Ghana.I was and still in the opinion that Ghanian teachers took a course in how to punish truants.They came up with weird and quite effective punishments for us when we did mischief. On the other hand ,they were very good teschers.I hope they still are.
The picture also reminds me of that very noisy game called "ten-ten" heard every day during break time,and played by girls,though i did see some boys try to play out of curiosity. If there is any nigerian woman reading this,can someone please explain to me what 10-10 was all about.Up till today,im still tring to make sense of it!
Very simple yet effective picture.
Walk from school?..Jideeeeeee. I sense thats a FABU. It would have been impossible to walk from the island to the mainland for me. Anyways I dreaded school..we had a primary 5 teacher, Mrs Ekekwe, who would punish you for the smallest things, like not writing the date or something like that and I dodged primary 6 cos I heard Mrs Willie-Harry was worse. Some people would come second in the class and would be having epileptic fits cos their parents were going 'show them pepper' while I'd proudly show my, in my opinion, great grades to popsie so joyfully.
I think the Nigerian system is too tough now though. It needs to be reviewed. And also I never knew a dyslexic person or kids who needed special attention. We were all treated the same and I think this is wrong. Some of those kids who were last in class just needed close attention.
Such a great shot, their expressions are wonderful. I did both the walking home from school and riding the bus. If I had it to do again, I'd choose the walking. It was a special time with your friends at the end of the school day.
Hi Jide
I like this one very much, because of the light B&W choice and the composition wich gives a really dynamic picture. More, the expressions of the two girls is very beautiful (hapiness, friendship) almost funny
A great shot but it is usual with you
thanks for taking us way back. I remember my "back to school" shoes. the girls in the picture reminded me of how hard we tried to keep our clothes clean but they got dusty as we walked along the untarred/tarred roads to school. I was back home 2 yrs ago, and found that most of our school building structures were not maintained, I cant really speak of the educational standard because I have been gone for a while.
Men,this pix bring back memories o!!We use to walk from surulere to national stadium then catch the funky train(molue for the uninitiated) to palmgrove, then another molue or danfo to bariga. i happened to go to CMS Grammar school in Bariga,(the greatest back in the day)though we had a HARD music teacher 'baba mose' all in all school was fun for me !! thank for the pix
hope im not too late!! im sorry man but i gotta say sumtin. You just had to take it back there Jide.. of course we remember those days. u know what i just remembered? how some of us used vaseline petroleum jelly can u imagine... no wonder we were always escorted around by dust.... nice pix i likes...
Mora.B
21 Aug 2007, 02:37
Gosh!! Left Naija as a kid still I cherish the imagery of school kids. Thank you!!! I love the camaraderie btw the two friends and the other female walking the other way in jeans. I wonder if they noticed you taking their picture?
anyways, luv shots from Nigeria...
Especially Lagos...really really great photojournal type shot..
I'm lovin it....