There is such a big difference between seeing or hearing numbers and meeting people representing that number.There were 5763 people standing before me; it was like Mount Zion. Early that faithful day, I got up by 7:00am, prepared myself as we were supposed to be at the venue by 8am. I called my neighbors who also applied for the scholarship, we got to the centre which was Peace Park, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State at 7:45am. Everyone who came before me was in a line or trying to find a line to join.
I met friends and colleagues from my school days, some I had not seen for as long as five years. At first it was like a reunion ,we talked, laughed, shared hugs, shook hands but all of it came to a halt when we got into the gate and were separated to sit according to our local government areas. People kept flooding in until there was no more space to accommodate the applicants. I turned to my friend and said “faith is when I look at all these people and tell you, SEE YOU AT LINCOLN”. Each day has 24 hours but time tends to slow down when you are not doing anything apart from standing. It was like a military training or something, I had been standing from 8am till 4pm, standing alone wouldn’t have been so frustrating; at one point of the day it was so hot that I felt like taking off my clothes but for modesty sake I did not. Just when I was getting used to the heat a storm came, everyone had to gather at certain corners of the Peace Park. I felt like I was in a compression box because I was so small, everyone was trying to push me out of my position and into the storm.
They were calling the names alphabetically and mine started with “I” so I was quite behind. My time came, I got into the bus and was taken to the Samson Siasia sports complex. For everything there is a time and a season, behold the time for standing had passed and the time for sitting had begun. I sat at the sports stadium for over two hours before the test started. The English question paper had two sections [1] Essay [2] Comprehension. I always loved comprehension before essay so I turned to the comprehension part, read it over and over again but couldn’t get the central Idea of the comprehension so I got the questions in my head and started reading again.I couldn't find a solution to much of the questions. At this point it was clear to me that my result solely depends on my essay writing skills. I turned to the essay “Identity; is it something we were born with or it’s something we build for ourselves.”
I did my best on the essay and struggled with the comprehension. I finished just in time before the coordinator screamed “SUBMIT YOUR PAPERS”. We were told to sit and wait for the next paper but nobody was willing to spend the night at sports complex. I was among the last people to leave the stadium due to my frustration about the test because it was clear to me that I didn’t do extraordinarily well.
The day ended with me walking home because I couldn’t stand and wait for a cab to come take me home. I got home around 9pm, tired and exhausted, I glorified God for Tuesday November 19, 2013. It was the first time I ever wrote a scholarship test brought about by the state government.
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