MY A1 FROM A1 - A MEMOIR OF A MEETING

I remember it like it was yesterday…

My best friend Dan had been on my case all day to accompany him on his daily campaign run to the main campus

Now, Dan is a political animal, thriving in the public arena, at his best at the core of an issue, exerting his influence on matters that matter. He was involved in every single election on every available platform during our 6+ year stay in med school, voting when he wasn’t eligible and being voted for when he was, from hostel to department to school-wide political platforms. He has continued that trend to this day, and I maintain that it is only a matter of time before he ascends to either the govt house of the house of parliament.

Dan loves politics.

I don’t.

I hate politics and politicians with a passion perhaps only matched by God’s hate for sin.

Before you start wondering how on earth we are best friends then, let me 1^st announce without fear of contradiction, that Dan is the rarest of rare breeds – the honest politician. Second, our friendship is based on many other shared passions and a kindredness of spirit that fully fulfils Proverbs 18:24.

But I digress.

So, Dan had been on my case to go with him to the main campus. He was running for one of his numerous posts that year, secretary general, I believe, and had been campaigning furiously. On this particular day, he insisted I make the trip from the teaching hospital to the main camp with him, something I had absolutely NO interest in doing, especially considering the purpose of the visit. I eventually relented, however, when he made it clear he would pay the transport fare and threw in lunch for good measure.

It was the lunch that clinched it for me. Who was I to turn down a free meal?

So, we cram into a campus cab squished like sardines and make our way through the now infamous bauchi road to the main campus of the university of Jos, and head straight for the mass of humanity that is lecture hall A1.

Now, I haven’t been back there for quite a few years now, and can’t say for sure that the status quo is still maintained, but back then virtually EVERYBODY was in A1.

It was the lecture hall that housed every single science based 100L student for their shared courses, and was also one of the 1^st port of calls once you walked through those massive campus gates, so even the not-science students had to walk by it to get to their departments, more often than not stopping at a window to chat up a particularly fetching ‘’jambite’’ they just happen to be able to notice from among the teeming throng. The hall was so large and the sound system never, ever worked, so that in effect only the ‘efficos’ sitting right on the stage, along with the 1^st 3 or 4 rows that could ever really boast of having attended any particular lecture. The back of the hall was reserved for the never ending chess tournaments (I use the term ‘tournament’ loosely), hawkers, dj’s, boys looking for jambite’s to ‘toast’, girls looking for jambite’s to ‘toast’ (yes, girls do it too), cultists looking for recruits, churches looking for recruits, clubs looking for recruits, (these days, the differences are getting progressively more blurred), and politicians looking for votes, among others.

Those in the middle of the hall were usually just there deceiving themselves, whatever their reason for being there. The real action was at the back.

It was into this cacophony of acceptably organised chaos that Dan and I descended that fateful day.

He headed straight for the middle benchers, quickly identifying the medical students among them and going to work, while I sought amusement at the back of the hall.

I’d been there quite a few minutes watching a chess game when IT happened.

The moment that forever changed my life.

I looked up.

I looked up from the game to see where Dan had gotten to, scanning through the crowd for his readily identifiable goatee, and eventually found it moving confidently around his mouth as he addressed 3 students. There was a guy who I will never be able to identify ever again, and 2 girls.

Sorry, 1 girl and an Angel.

She smiled (the Angel, that is) and my heart stopped.

I was blinded but at the same was given brilliant clarity for the 1^st time in my life.

I had to dive into that smile, lose myself in that brilliant light, sacrifice myself in its warmth like a moth with flame.

I didn’t even realise I had gotten up as if in a trance and made a beeline for that smile, till I heard Dan introducing us and someone was shaking my hand.

It was the guy, whoever he was, and I dismissed him impatiently to refocus on Angel.

And then she spoke.

But it wasn’t just a voice. No, to define that sound as anything less than a melody would be an insult to the very definition of every sound ever heard anywhere and everywhere through all of time.

It was a melody. It was a song. It was every pleasant memory, every favourite dessert, every improbable daydream, every celestial choir, every breath of wind on butterfly’s wings all rolled into one.

She spoke, and it was beautiful.

She asked me what post I was there campaigning for, and in my panic at realising I had to address this divine creature, I answered, ‘’vice chancellor’’!

And she laughed.

Oh my, she laughed.

If you think I just waxed lyrical at the sound of her voice, what do you think her laughter did to me?

I lack the vocabulary at this time to adequately describe the experience. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

Suffice it to say, that laughter was like a drug, a mega dose that followed the primer that was her smile, and I was hooked. I didn’t want it to stop. I did all I could to keep her laughing and smiling. I was like a man possessed, all my natural shyness and calm introvertism dissipated as I drew on every iota of wit and charm I was suddenly convinced I was capable of, determined to keep the drug flowing. I felt I would never breathe again if she stopped smiling.

It was all Dan could do to drag me away, reminding me we still had things to do that day. I had even forgotten all about the free lunch!

Food had lost all taste when compared to that smile, but then it tasted all the better at the thought of that smile.

I hatched my plan right there and then. Dan had been on my case to run for director of sports. He was convinced I was the man for the job, seeing as how I’d been successfully coaching the football team for a few years already. I had vehemently refused, citing my complete lack of patience for the bureaucratic process than typified and seemed to excuse the complete lack of action of almost all political entities. I was happy where I was, and I was getting results. 

All that changed with one smile.

On our way to lunch I stopped by a photographer, took an instant pic and went straight from there to a printer, Dan following in complete befuddlement. As I described to the printer what I wanted, immediately Dan realised it was a campaign poster, he hugged me so tight I almost changed my mind.

Yes, I decided to run for the sole purpose of returning to find Angel and campaigning to her and her alone. Hers was the only vote I needed.

That was the beginning of a long and wonderful story.

That was how I met my Angel.

That was 12 years ago, we’ve now been married 5.

Today is our 5^th wedding anniversary.

Now, I’ve gotten a few distinctions in my time, but as far as scoring an A1, none will ever come close to the A1 I got from A1