As the first term comes to an end, most schools are closing for the April holiday this week while some closed as early as last week. Congrats kids, you made it through the longest term.
This reminds me of many years back while the mere thought of closing school was a big reason to celebrate, let alone the actual closing (not forgetting mixed reactions depending on the grade on the report card).
The epitome of this joy and equal sadness came where you had that one fellow to officiate the “closing” with through some harassment and some good beating.
“I am going to close with you” literally to mean, on closing day, I will have to revenge on something petty you did to me over the term. Closing day was the ideal time for that owing to the ‘freedom’ that we used to get, not to mention the idea that teachers would not punish you on that day and would shelve it until schools re-open again.
When the actual day came, woe unto those who had been promised some “send-away package” as they could only count on their heels to save them, while the package-giver would also trust his, to catch up with the target.
If you were lucky enough, you got away, if you weren’t, you had to bear the brunt of anything-goes ceremony where even the rules on strict adherence to school uniform went broken. Then, we would look forward to a long holiday, mostly characterized by visits to auntie’s place since we were a real nuisance to parents during the one month stay. Sorry digital kids, that sounds like a fairy tale.