EARLY LIFE!!!

I'd started school at about five years of age. I remember that I'd intensely hated the project, because it severely curtailed my period of play and freedom. You must be tidy in appearance coming to school, which meant either a complete ablution or the washing of face and limbs to present at least a good facade. In kiddie school, there was these two days I couldn't go to school. I had a kind of rashes all over my body. Mom had called it: "ina orun" [Ina orun is Yoruba tag for measles]. When I got to school, my mistress [we called female teacher "Mistress"] queried: "Segun [she’d rather called me Segun than any of my other names], why were u absent from school couple of days?” I answered: Ma, Mom, said I'm suffering from heavenly fire. I translated "Ina orun" [Ina=fire, orun=heaven] into English in my own little understanding of English and Yoruba Language. My translation created a scene. My teacher and the whole class reeled wild in ecstasy of laughs; Mr. Kadri, Mrs. Olusa, Mr. Adeyanju, Mr. Ajongbolo, my teacher called her colleague. Please, come and hear Sege-the English man, son of Agun. Segun s'oyinbo o, penkelemesi!!! [Penkelemesi, as I later read in the history of politics in Nigeria, is a distortion of English word: peculiar messes, coined from the speech of Adelabu of Ibadan during a political campaign. Lol!!! 

=DEOLA