My journey to becoming (part 2)

"My foundation "

Whatever revelation I give about myself in this series of "my journey to becoming " in some way or another have a link to my personality,  choices and life decisions. Psychoanalysts say out of the millions of experiences we must  have had during our childhood, if we manage to remember particular episodes or keep memories of some events, that will be because that memory in some way still affects us in the present. I guess this is true about me because there are certain aspects about by childhood which is just me today.  I really never had a stable primary education since my dad(of blessed memory) was a prison guard (Warden) and was being transferred from one town to another. This was so bad that I didn't make much friends and always made a concious effort to forget those I had as a defense mechanism not to feel bad once we had to leave the next year or 2. I remember at one point when my dad was transferred from Ngaoundere to Buea, I cannot tell the distance in kilometers but back then it was at least a 3day journey. He had spent all he had that we didn't have any money left to rent a house of our own; of which they were relatively cheap back then: a 4 bedroom house back then could be rented for the sum of 30-40,000fcfa ($80,000). But my dad could not afford it, so we (in total 6) were taken in by a very kind-hearted family of 6 as well into a 2 bedroom  house, which had just a toilet and no running water in it. The life lessons learned here were kindness and the ability to help others in need, no matter the problems we are faced with. This is because there are many people out there whose conditions are far worse than ours and to whom we stand a better position to lend a helping hand, and share the little with them. Thanks to this family,  we didn't get to sleep on the streets, but living under such a condition wasn't easy at all. This forced my dad to move my sister and I  to the village to live with our grandma, immediately he had some small cash. Back there in the village, life wasn't any better.  The worse was schooling.  We spent most of our days of schooling out of school either to go and carry logs of woods, bricks, planks, working on teacher's farms, peeling eggussi for teachers, working in the school nursery which actually belonged to the head teacher. The head teacher alongside the other teachers will collect money from people to transport their products from faroff bushes to their homes and the head teacher will use the pupils as his vehicle of transportation, until roll calls were made.  Any pupil who dared  to escape, would be severely punished the next day in school. Our parents couldn't do anything because they were the once hiring the services of the head teacher, probably because it was cheaper or may be because transport cars were unavailable.  One day, I was badly wounded on my rigth foot joint, while working on the farm land of our then class 7 madam called madam AYUK. She claimed I was playing and refused to cover for the medical expenses . The leg got rotten so badly that till date I still suffer from nerves damage and severe pains around that area.  I always said to myself when I grow up some day I would change the system.  I am sure it was from this experience that the quest for social change began  developing in me. Sadly our rural primary schools are still carryingout these illicit  practices till date, and the government will begin to wonder why the rates of school dropouts, juvenile delinquency and early childbearing are higher in our rural communities. The next year I went back to the city with my dad and schooled there for a year and later returned to the village where I obtained my first school leaving certificate . We had some great and happy moments though, but my driving force stemmed from the bad experiences. I will have to end here and will continue the sequence to "my journey to becoming" in the days ahead.Please feel free to leave comments and questions if you have any and I promise to give you honest answers.  Just so you know my organization is still interested in changing things around our rural schools. We intend to bring about the needed change.