My favourite football teams are Accra Hearts of Oak and Arsenals of London. I have soft spot for Liverpool because I studied my second master’s degree and started the PhD in Liverpool. But for the pressure from an uncle who I credit my academic success to, I would have become a professional footballer. My love for football at a tender age knew no bounds. I have watched great historic football matches at stadia that many football loving adults of my father’s age dared to. The shoves of adulthood and the desire to achieve higher heights has taken the most part of my attention and whittled down my love for football.
I arrived in Liverpool, for my second master’s degree as a self-financing international student. It was a big challenge; almost an impossible aspiration and a wishful thinking. At a stage in life, I decided not to discuss my ventures that I am convinced about because I realised people have swift ways of talking you out of your aspirations when they perceive those aspirations are vague expressions from achievable targets. I just do it knowing that even if I sought their views I will still have to live with the consequences thereafter.
The cost involved in attaining British education for international students is only the preserve of the rich and/or those with scholarships. Mine was none of the two. I had to pay by my own means. A trusted friend agreed and bought my flight ticket. He complained severally against my decision to go to Liverpool but it was late because I had already gained admission, secured visa and had only a week to travel before informing him so no amount of talking will change anything. I am eternally grateful for his help.
I missed getting a first class from the undergraduate degree because of poor counselling by the university. At the first semester of level 100, I understood from some lecturers and students that the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is calculated from a student’s best scoring grades and that the more courses one took that better his chances of having the best grades calculated. I took 154 credit hours contrarily to the 124 credit hours. It turned out to be a monstrous deception. In the end, all courses were calculated and I missed getting first class by an inch.
My first attempt at pursuing the post bachelor LLB was dealt a bigger blow by a monstrous act of a single personality. I successfully passed the competitive entrance exams by thousands of applicants and shortlisted for a subsequent interview which the Chair of the panel told me at the end of my interview that I had passed, and that I should go and prepare for school. It later emerged that after I left the interview room, one of the panellists who had a personality clash with one of my uncles was reported to have said to the panel that my admission into the faculty will be over his dead body. The wickedness of some people in our educational institutions surpasses the craftiness of the devil in the Garden of Eden. If we continue to punish people for the hatred that we had for their family, our society will be full of vindictiveness.
Thankfully to God, today I am in a position of strength and if I will be as evil as that professor, anybody I meet with his family name will never receive my approval. But my trust is in the passage of scripture which says that “vengeance belong to God.” I have long forgiven that professor and moved on in life. After the disappointment, I applied for a master’s programme, gained admission and went ahead to pursue the course to a successful completion. I had and still do have the penchant for higher and diverse fields of study. I followed and still following it.
As mentioned earlier, I went to Liverpool to pursue a second master’s degree. As a self-financing international student in Liverpool, I had to work to support my living just like some international students do. I told an Anglican Father also from Ghana studying in the same university of my financial plight. He was desirous of helping me. Daily, we went on job hunting by roaming the streets of Liverpool looking out for notices of vacancies. Where we saw one, we went in and inquired. We also went to the job centres and applied online. Amazingly none of those efforts yielded any positive result.
Father never gave up and because he read the Mass at different Anglican Dioceses, he interacted with many people and continuously asked for job opportunities for me. He was so concerned about how a young man like me could survive the reason for which I had travelled. We both lived on campus but in different halls of residence. Father came to my hall one early morning and told me he had met some Africans who have completed their programme in the university but were still living in Liverpool and working. He promised to go see them later in the day to ask them if they can help in my job search.
Father returned in the evening and told me that he had met those Africans and luckily for us the Ghanaian among them has been asked by the immigration to leave the UK to Ghana because he has completed his university education and overstayed his visa. I was to replace him when he leaves. What a joy for us. Alas I will have a job.
It was a night job at the Tesco branch of Merseyside, Liverpool. My shift will start from 12 midnight and close at 4am. The public bus service was not available between those hours and there was no way the minimum wage job for a four hour shift could pay for taxi. I had to walk to work and back. Between the distances are two cemeteries and two funeral homes with mortuaries attached. How do I walk this lonely road at those odd hours?
