We Broke Limbs And Legs Fleeing From Bush Baby And Witlow

By Cami Ezenwa

We broke limbs and legs, in fact, we bruised our bodies all over, fleeing from bush baby and Witlow.

What kind of a night was that, that not only saw many students having the worst nightmares of their lives, but ending up losing treasured study materials, some they had used upwards of two academic sessions to acquire?

In that moment of time, we could see the lofty esteem in which we held Trinity High School Oguta, at some point renamed Boys High School, a school of long-standing academic and extra-curricular accomplishments, take a fast dip.

Many years after, I am yet to come to terms with what really happened, neither have ever come across any fuller meaning of the word, witlow, but the repeated shout of that word that triggered the stampede.

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By Cami Ezenwa

And students, old and young, came scrambling down the doors and windows, some actually scaling down from the first floor classes where they were reading intensely for the forthcoming examinations. I can’t think of any student who did not injure one part of their body or another, in a desperate flight to safety.

How I managed to get down, I cannot say, but we broke limbs and legs, not one person, but all who fled from upstairs. What most mattered to me, in terms of immediate loss, was that I had smashed my lantern of great value.

You should ask me: how was the small lantern the only thing that I couldn’t forget to leave behind, while dumping a full complement of study materials, including textbooks, exercise books and Maths set etc.

It wasn’t the usual lantern but a baby-sized illuminator of a lantern preferred for its unique size and for being a sort of identity for average boarding students.

Other acquisitions in the category were usually small galvanized or plastic pails, pullovers, the school crest on your shirts, sports and dormitory wears.

I also remember the sing-song, “Green khaki, yellow fever, Green khaki, yellow fever” with which Oguta kids in the neighborhood usually announced their sighting of Trinity High school boarding students.

It was a way of expressing their excitement, and whereas it gave you a feeling fulfilment and pride, the danger was in announcing that a boarding student was leaving the dormitory. Imagine if you were leaving without an exit card!

We used to wonder why the school chose a colour as loud as yellow and green as dormitory uniform. At its upland location backing the sprawling Obinikpa settlement, one could see far down town through the community market to east end of Oguta town, the same way you could be sighted from afar off in your shining green khaki and yellow fever, trying to descend the hill to town.

..back to what we were saying; I said we broke limbs and legs trying to escape the Bush Baby and Witlow scare. Yes, we broke limbs and legs scaling down but the flight continued to the different dormitories.

And then different tales began to emerge trying to explain what we had just witnessed. The exaggerators had a field day, saying for example, that Bush Baby was a periodical visitor. Some preferred witlow as its name, adding that it had red hot fire lining all parts of its rectangular form.

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Those who said it was Bush Baby, added that it had the tendency of flying through the creeks of the stream that flowed behind Father Walsh and Trinity Houses, two of the six dormitories of residence, the others being Nzimiro House, Udom, Okwuosa, and Ibiam, six dormitories in all.

I just sensed my head enlarge with each scary detail to an already nightmarish story. For the first time, I was reluctant to sleep on my up position on the bunk bed.  Many others the same. It took the whole night and the following morning discussing the night flight.

So, we broke limbs and legs fleeing to safety, but much more broken was the confidence to stay back in the classrooms studying after junior lights out.

How did I even cope for the rest of the term? Unfortunately, I could not stay beyond Class Two, in such a great mission secondary school, first of its pack at that time.

I can’t remember it happening again, but the scare of that stampede was too much to be forgotten. Could it be what made me leave Trinity High School prematurely after Class Two? In fact, was I so hounded by the possibility of an eerie and fire-bearing visitor crashing into the dormitory windows by my bedside in the middle of the night?

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