The Africans/3

We were eating manka and cow leg stew in the 4th medical hostel.

We were still in the same little groups that we had been divided into after the student’s union meeting. The plan was based on the fact that it was a lot more manageable for each of the older students to take the new students in their group to their rooms for a meal of manka. Manka is the affectionate name that is given to a flour-based meal, which is called mannaya and which was the favourite food for most Nigerians in the USSR. The first commers to the USSR from Africa had discovered this food and developed an ingenious method of making it into a semi-solid swallowable meal that reminded them of the West African pounded yam flower.

The locals usually made the manka into porridge for their growing children and did not always express happiness at the way some African students stocked up on it, leading to a recurrent shortage of manka anywhere that there was a student hostel nearby. Of course, there was also a recurrent shortage of a lot of other essential food items in places where there were no student’s hostels…

The president of the Nigerian students union was lecturing us on how we had to be exemplary students and not get into any trouble with the Russians.
“A lot of people get into trouble because of fighting” he was saying. And I thought he was talking about physical fighting. “The fighters are everywhere and some of them are government agents. So you need to stick to your books and not involve yourselves in fighting…”
“Which fighters are you talking about?” I asked a bit confused.
“Fighters are a group of wayward girls who are just interested in having a good time.” He said and then told of how the person who had caught the Nigerian who had been sent to jail was one of the fighters. And he then talked about how it was necessary for some to stay abstinent from sex for the whole duration of their stay in the USSR. "It's possible. I am a living example."

As he talked I noticed that there was an occasional ticking of his head, like somebody who had some neurological problems.“So you must stay away from fighters and be serious with your books. Here the assessments are continuous and your marks at the end of the year are a sum of your cummulative performance for the duration of the course and what you score in end the of course exams”.

The president, it turned out, was one of those people who have always excelled academically. He was the best all-round student for his year and was heading towards graduating with a krasniy diplom, or red degree; something that was used to distinguish the very best students from the rest.
“In this town we keep our heads like this.” He continued, raising up his head and then looking at an imaginary person standing near the door through his nose…”And we will not want you people to abandon your studies and start drinking Vodka. If you focus on your studies you won’t have any problems in this town.”

The president continued on this lecturing mood for the rest of the evening and told us about the do’s and don’ts of living succesfully in Rostov-On-Don the way he had done.

Later that evening most of us had congregated in Ugo’s room which he shared with Eddy. Earlier that day Ugo had been elected as the representative of the Nigerians in the preparatory faculty.
“Most of the Africans in Rostov look like say dem be bush men!” Eddy was saying “All of them look wretched and defeated. But man-me, presido takes the cake!”
“I wonder how dem take elect am?” Ugo asked.
“This must be the work of the gorodsky soviet to tame Naija people for this town” Eddy continued “ but to elect an imbecile na real insult be dat!” he said.
“He’s not an imbecile per se.” I offered “the man is actually a genius. He’s the best student the school has had in the last 5years!” I didn't want to bring up the issue of his head ticking and his abstinence.
“Yeah right! The man’s a complete joke and still looks like an imbecile to me. You no notice the bongo wey hin wear. Common, who dey wear bongo these days. This is the 80’s for Chrissake?” Eddy continued making a reference to the bell-bottom trousers that the president had worn at the meeting stating that people don’t wear such things anymore.
“If the man wan wear bongo na hin problem be dat. But I like Ken and I notice how hin been dey look presido each time wey hin talk about Nigerians being a proud people”. Ade, who had been quiet for most of the evening, added. He was talking about liking Ken and his observations that Ken seemed to always look at the President whenever he talked about Nigerians being proud.
“Are you suggesting that Ken is not proud of the President?” I asked.
“Are you?” Eddy asked.
I kept silent.