There were times that my tuition fee delayed and the administration threatened to call the Home Office to repatriate me because one of the reasons my visa was granted was that I demonstrated to the Home Office I had the financial means to pay my fees; therefore the school’s administration did not understand why my fees instalment payment delayed at times. Along the line, I was awarded a poverty fund of two thousand pounds (£2,000) by an Anglican Christian Philanthropic Foundation.
My school mate, an Anglican Father from Ghana gave me the link to apply for the aid and Father Goodchild in Liverpool endorsed the forms to attest of my financial need. Father and Mrs Goodchild were once missionaries in Nigeria during the Biafra War. Their passion for African students in the Anglican Church at Saint Michael in the Hamlet, Liverpool was special. They were the go to family for African students who came to the church. These were one of the times that I felt proud to be a traditional Anglican. The Foundation that gave the aid is Anglican and my attestation was given by Anglicans. That financial award lifted part of the burden on my tuition fees.
Each time I walked that lonely road at midnight to work and back, I looked over my shoulders severally thinking that some ghosts were following me. One midnight at work, a colleague British suddenly exclaimed “a ghost has come around”. I thought the ghost had followed me. The horror that gripped my thought made me wonder how I will survive going home if that ghost was waiting by the corner of the road. Luckily for me, it was a Friday. Weekends are usually filled with heavy drinking by the people. Unlike the other days of the week, Fridays and Saturdays nights had people drinking all-nights. And on days that Liverpool Football Club win a match then you are sure to see a lively road even at midnight. After close of work I walked unto a lively road to my flat. I didn’t see the ghost as I had thought.
I had always wondered how ghosts are but not with the hope to seeing one. How will a British ghost look like; will it look white or a shadow? When I walked those lonely roads at midnight, it increased my faith which empowered me to the act of walking-prayers. I prayed on my way to work, prayed during work and prayed on my way back home. I believed my prayers could put the ghosts away and give me the serenity of mind to work and study.
My experience, unlike many who travelled abroad and had fun, mine at Liverpool was full of deep reflections amid postgraduate education. It wasn’t fun in the true sense of the word.
When I fell sick and the ambulance had to pick me from my flat to the hospital, the paramedics upon entering my room and seeing so many books; over five hundred (500) books which I had bought with my own money, they marvelled and said my sickness could only be attributed to self-denial. I actually got sick from poor self-management.
When I stopped drinking my daily two glasses of hot milk because I felt I could buy books with that money, I suffered extreme constipation. I fed mostly on Basmati rice and cow leg vegetable soup. Later, over one hundred and fifty (150) books were stolen with other personal belongings by the shippers who tried to swindle me but for my vigilance. This was a childhood friend who lived in Manchester and operated a door-to-door shipping service. He tried to outsmart me but I resisted. I plan on taking him on one day at the local court in Manchester for fraudulent operations.
A Bangladesh co-tenant and school mate later told me that when he told his family back home of my sickness, their little daughter said it was the cow leg that was kicking my stomach. The lonely nights made many international students kept constant communication with families back home. My cooking art and style of living filled most of their conversations. I used to cook my soup often with cow leg. He told me how each time I finished cooking and left the kitchen, he also came to serve his portion of my food unknowing to me. He praised my food to be very good. He asked me to teach his wife how to cook those soups when she visited with their daughter from Bangladesh.
This co-tenant and school mate was apparently eating my food always until such time when his guilty conscience caught up with him and he confessed; since then he contributed to the cooking so he could eat with good conscience. I made a little money off his contributions to continue buying my books. I am so proud of the library I had put together over the period and I am happy to share the knowledge and reading with all who join my readers club.
