Isn’t it funny after all these years we just replaced the rising bell with our phone alarms? *Tears*
Being in the boarding house in senior high is one of the most nostalgic rites of passage for many Ghanaians. It is the place where we make lifelong friends and build the spirit of fraternity and belonging. The rising bell, dormitory politics, the dining hall drama, entertainment jams and all the excitement of interco. *Sigh* The memories. The days in boarding house weren’t always rosy (cue in legendary Maths and French teachers with a love for corporal punishment) but they sure left their mark.
Today, we are reminiscing on some things that made our time in boarding house golden.
Here are 10 things you probably had in your trunk in boarding house.
1. Dry Bones Biscuit (Hy3 me ma).
No size. The OG biscuit. Cabin Biscuit could never. Dry bones biscuit (Hy3 me Ma) was and remains the most versatile biscuit in boarding house. How do you want it? Dropped in a bowl of powdered milk and sugar? How about with a cocoa beverage? Dry bones, always and forever. Amen!
2. Curl-Out Hair Pomade.
Remember how boys wanted waves in their hair to flex? Some even used keysoap and water to get perms. We suffer oh. Thank God for Curl-Out Hair cream. The familiar pocket-sized red container will never be forgotten.
3. Shito (with pieces of meat).
Yes, I had to qualify this one. There is shito and then there is Shito. The former is mediocre but the latter? Elite is the word. Hot and ready with small blocks of meat and maybe some bits of dried fish for *ahem* extra flavour. Lai la ila lai! You know everyone in the dorm would want to kill your vim when you made some gari and shito.
4. Naphthalene balls (camphor).
Camphor: the trusted cockroach repellent for trunks since the Bassel Missionary’s first school. The all-too familiar balls were in almost everyone trunks. Unless you came to school to rear roaches.
5. Palito.
Before smartphones these palm-sized radio sets were our plug to the world outside. The kicker was getting it seized by a perfect or housemaster only to see them using it later.
6. Titus Sardine.
There is a pyramid chain when it comes to sardines and Titus Sardine is at the very top. As for this one we reserve it for the dada bees.
7. St. Louis Sugar cubes.
This sugar is a staple with not just boarding house but with Ghanaian households. Period! At this point it needs to he credited as a Ghanaian national treasure.
8. 555 bowls
This bowl eh…Oh,my days. Dropping it was like ringing the rising bell. Unless you have watched Money Heist, please don’t even try to use this bowl to soak gari after lights out. You don’t want to wake up the whole dorm.
