A Secondary School Survivor; Year One...

Orientation Camp

Morning devotion was just ending.

The hostel mother had begun her closing address to the sea of roughly two hundred girls clad in pajamas, robes, or with half their uniform on. Duna fell in the second category however and she was doing her best to plan her exit in her head from this dreadful place. It was left for her to throw on her pinafore and shoes and she would be good to go. She had no one to tag along with anyway.

"...the Lord be with you...",

"Amen!"

And if I can use the next five minutes to arrange my bunk then I can spread my towel outside-

"...the Lord make His face to shine upon you..."

"Amen!"

-that's if I'm let off the hook easily because judging by the size of the hostel, if I have to sweep the floor just because I seem to be up to nothing important, I'd spend a little over seven minutes-

"...and be gracious unto you..."

"Amen"

-but if I'm blessed, I'll be out of here early enough.

"...may He turn His face towards you..."

"Amen!"

Just a bit more...

"...and give you peace. Have a blessed day"

"Amen! Thank you ma."

Jehovah be praised

Everyone flooded out of the quadrangle in torrents to their hostels. If Duna were to be a much smaller person then most likely she would have been run over. She took her time that morning to tidy up her things before her alarm went off. Then swiftly, without anyone noticing, she left the girl's hostel and found her way to school.

~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~

Of all the...!

This was the fourth period already and Duna felt like collapsing into a bed and falling asleep till 'Thy Kingdom come'.

So, she got to school 5:40 that morning, managed to almost get lost twice before her big brother found her and confined her to his classroom, got to the assembly hall without throwing up her breakfast (of a corn medium and bean cakes as big as a hand), then squabbled over lockers with some new students in her grade and almost got into her very first argument.

Michael stole the locker she picked first and dumped her packing box of books at the back of the class. The girl who offered to watch her things while she was out answering a call for less than five minutes was probably also stolen since she was nowhere to be found. All that frustration built up for the next three periods as she had to cram into memory, individually made-up rules and regulations by her - their- new teachers. Oh, and each period was forty minutes long and there were nine periods in a day!
On top of all this, the most heart-wrenching information she received was her break period timing.

"Only ten minutes as short break?! No mid-day lunch either? Twenty minutes long break?!! This is improper...!" Just to summarize how she felt by the way; by the end of the ten minutes short break, the effects of her breakfast combination were starting to kick in. For confirmation's sake, ask a kid from Geriani the side effects of their local custard and fried beancakes in the morning. Purely sedative.

Poor Duna had to struggle to keep herself alert and keep her brain awake while dragging herself through class. Let me tell you; it wasn't easy especially since her class just happened to be the only one with air-conditioning as it was once a computer lab!