C3 Chapter 3.

After that, I asked a student where the third grade was and he led me there. I purposely slowed down my steps to get to the point where all the students would already be sitting, waiting for the teacher and it worked! They were sitting and chatting.

When I walked in, everyone quieted down and all eyes were on me.

I started to dart my eyes around looking for a place to sit when everyone started calling out to me saying "come sit here" no but, some of the benches were already full but they wanted me to come squeeze in.

I saw a young girl who looked calm and composed telling me in a low voice to come and sit with her and I did. After a few exchanges, she let me know that she was new like me. With her, I discovered this college. We walked and ate together during the break while visiting the little corners that were there like for example the party room, the English section with its many empty and unoccupied classrooms because it had just been built.

The courtyard wasn't that big but you could walk around in every corner you wanted and I loved that!

I also liked the way the students were, which was cheerful and very open.

Two people could not really know each other but communicate as if they had known each other since the beginning of time.

The first week went well, but the teachers of certain subjects didn't show up, like the French teacher for example, even though French was included in the school program.

It was starting to get on my nerves because not only was it my favorite subject, but it was also the subject I was doing the best in when I was in the previous classes.

The grades I got made up for the science subjects like math where I was terrible.

So there was no way I was going to go another week without doing this subject.

The second week arrived and I started to memorize some faces and names like the twin brothers Assane and Ousseini Sidimé.

They were not Cameroonian like me and most of the students but Malian but they loved Cameroon so much.

I liked Assane, the taller brother of the two but the shorter haha.

He was calm when he needed to be and talkative when he needed to be.

He was a nice boy to me, the way he talked to me during the different breaks to answer my questions about him, about school or about other things.

He had a way of looking at me even when we were in class and it made me think that he liked me.

Anyway, he was one of the students that I noticed and liked. I'm not saying that there were students I didn't like, no, they were all great, but I didn't have contact with everyone because there were more than 70 students in the class and it was annoying because there was too much noise during class and it was the same thing during detention time.

I found myself taking a paracetamol when I got home.

Thank God, this situation did not last because the same day, during the penultimate hour of class, the sector supervisor nicknamed Mr. "Jack Bauer" came into our classroom with a sheet of paper in his hand.

You should see how everyone closed their mouths, you would have thought we were in a graveyard or two seconds before his arrival, it was blurring in the classroom.

- JACK BAUER: Um, lucky I didn't catch anyone talking or someone was going to read the time on the Chinese calendar!

I think that was the second time he had come into our classroom.

The first time he came was the week before and it was to introduce himself to us new kids mostly.

The old students told me how he didn't laugh, how he was mean and how we had to be careful with him...

At first glance, he looked like a terror despite his small size of about 1m60 and his thin and hard body, without forgetting his dark black complexion which made him very quickly distinguishable.

But otherwise, I was not afraid of him because I was a quiet student, not very talkative and who does not disturb, so I had nothing to fear especially since I had undone my rasta and this, the first Monday of the school year.

The students had already noticed the difference so when I came back, I undid everything so I was 100% in order.

My cousin Sharel made me one of those pompom braids and she did some rastas with my hair so it fell on my forehead. It was really pretty.

Otherwise, I liked Jack Bauer because with the unnecessary chatter that the students often engaged in, someone had to be there to bring order.

- JACK BAUER: Okay, we're going to divide you in half and everyone I'm going to call will pack up their things and follow me to the second level where they will go to their new classrooms.

To be continued...