C10 THE HUMILIATION OF A GEM 2

They told her they want to, so she began the story where she stopped the previous day. This time she started with the admission of Ewanimi into the best national university, she said

"She finished her high school as the best student of the year in the country and she was admitted into the nation foremost premier university, but there was huge difference between the life in high school and life in university "

Segregation of children from rich homes from children from poor homes were only possible in high school in her days, because parents sent their children to private high schools that fits their financial capacity; but there was no private university in the country then as it abounds today; due to this, students from rich homes attended the same universities as children from poor homes.

Some students from poor homes even attended better universities than students from rich homes, because the exam result with which each came out of high schools determined their university placements. So some students from poor homes who were more brilliant than the ones from rich homes got into better universities.

However, their lifestyles in the campus revealed their parent's financial status. While some students attended university driving their own cars and living in plush rented apartments around their campus, children from poor homes crammed together in hostels and lived poorly in their days in the campus.

One of such guy from the poor side was a guy called Olamide, he was a son of a single mother. As he was told, his father died when he was a baby and his mother did not know any of the father's relatives; nor did any of the relatives knew that his dad impregnated his mother, so she suffered greatly as she single handedly raised him through schools!

When it was time for him to come to this university, the financial challenge was beyond what she could cope with and he had to postpone his admission into the school for few years

Three years after he has been deferring his admission into university, some good people who knew of his predicament in their church came together to help him, because the pastor solicited for help on his behalf.

The people helped him not just because the pastor asked for their help for him, but they helped him because he was the soul of their church! So the people agreed to pay his school fees, buy him books and take care of his school projets, because they themselves were poor; they left his feeding to his mother.

And due to the fact that his mother rarely could make ends meet, because she worked as a cheap labourer in building sites and there are times when she was not picked for work at those sites, or sometimes she won't find a building site where to work; this resulted in Olamide not been given enough money to feed himself.

Apart from the issue of poor feeding in school, there were other occasions that he needed money to do one or two things concerning his course and he could not take such burden to the people who were straining already to help him.

For these reasons Olamide too began to do what his mother used to do to get money back at home in the campus. Some constructions were ongoing in their campus, so he began to work there as a labourer to earn money to cover his pressing needs in the college

However, his situation not withstanding, he was the only challenge Ewanimi has to confront in her course. Though she used to look down on his poor state, but academically Olamide was not like Bori of her high school days; which she kept behind her all through with her better performances.

Olamide was extremely brilliant and he beat Ewanimi in all their first set of tests in their course, due to this she hate him fiercely! She used to wonder how a guy who alternated between labour work at construction site and his studies could beat her!

In their class, she was the only person who considered it a disgrace to look ahead of her academically and see the poor Olamide Infront. To others in the class, Olamide was an angel in human body, he even used to help some of them financially from the money he made from the labour work which they all harboured!

His poor situation and dirty work in the campus did not dampen his spirit, he was not ashamed of his situation because he knew it was for a while. He kept his focus on why he was in the college.

Sometimes he does not have enough time to go to the hostel to change his dirty work clothes; at such times he rushed to the class and cement water were often seen here and there on his body, and he exudes faint labour odour.

All his lecturers knew his condition and they respected him for his dogged determination and humbleness to do this dirty work to survive in the campus; when other poor students pretended to be okay!

Although, on occasions when he had no time to change his work clothes before coming to class and his body exuded those faint odour, nobody in his class ever complain about it when he sat beside them because they loved him!

only Ewanimi and few empty headed arrogant students from rich homes in his class do not like to sit with him. But to others, they loved his company because he always was a big boost to them academically when he sits with them; for he will occasionally point out one or two things to them while they are attending lectures to enlighten them better on what the lecturer is saying in front of the class. Overtime he sat with almost all his mates, it was only Ewanimi he never sat with.

This because he has tried to engage her in constructive conversation because he liked her brilliancy, he believed they were both irons that could sharpen each other

When others came to him, they only pick his brain and never contribute anything back to replenish him, but he saw in Ewanimi somebody he could gain from. For this reason he tried to engage her in discussion, but she just disdainfully snubbed him and walked away from him.

He tried two other times, when he saw that the result was the same, he made up his mind not to have anything to do with her and he kept his distance from her

Though he did not know why, but it was clear that this young lady hate him burningly! However, his mind was always mysteriously drawn towards her, he used to look at her afar off when he felt she was not aware of him doing so. And strangely he has caught her too looking at him on some occasions with a kind of eyes that he could not understand.

Others in the class saw her as a cold, aloof brilliant sadist from a rich home and they all gave her technical gap. She has no friend among her mates, they all called her iron lady. Although they used to approach her when Olamide was not available to help them academically.

She herself knew she was not loved in her class, but she was too arrogant to step down so that her mates could love her. The only difference between her life in high school and that of the college lies in the fact that she knew there were dangerous guys all around in the college who could wound or secretly kill her if she step on people.

This is university, any attempt to over step her boundary, even girls who may not be able to combat her can hand her over to some cult groups which abounds in the campus.

Few days after she arrived in the campus, she had seen how some students were brutality humiliated publicly; so she was tactical in her cold aloofness and display of arrogance.

However, on a particular day she threw caution to the wind, because Olamide who she could not tolerate stepped into her space after they just received result of a test and he beat her again

While she was nursing the hurt of been beaten by him again, the next class they had, she exploded irrationally and unleashed the long bottled resentment on him!