
Have you ever crawled through rocks and sharp twigs on your knees? Your flesh being cut open as you slog your half-awake body through harsh, rugged terrain—rocks, twigs, stones, rough sand—while adults yell at you to go faster?
Just me? OK, I’ll tell you the tale.
I was fifteen, one year away from finishing boarding school in Lagos, Nigeria. We had to spend two weeks at “Sea School”—the logic—if we can be so kind—was that those two weeks would teach us leadership skills. To be a prefect—a very big deal to some back then—you had to graduate sea school with a badge.
Students liked sea school because it offered a little freedom away from the trenches of boarding school. Away from the watchful eyes of teachers and under the lax oversight of administrators who seemed either poorly paid or less motivated. If you were dating, or hoping to date, sea school offered an escape for you to meet your person or people.
It’s set on a small, under-developed island off the coast of Lagos Island. We took a ferry from the mainland. The water was a sickly soup of urban detritus—rotting tires, discarded clothing, plastic bottles, food refuse, decomposing organic matter, and blobs of unidentifiable waste. When we arrived on the island, the coordinators made us do some silly drills and then the famous “endurance walk”. A grueling three-hour walk in the sweltering heat and unforgiving humidity.
We weren’t the only school on the island. They host multiple schools at any given time. But I distinctly remember the other schools didn’t like us. We were the private “ajebutter” school—a term that translates to “one who eats butter”, a euphemism for a wealthy child. Anyway, we found a way to co-exist on the island together.
The rules of the island were clear—obey the coordinators at all times, never get into the water without supervision, don’t sneak around in the night. As you might imagine when you stash an island full of hundreds of teenagers, all three rules were routinely broken.
So why was I nearly kicked off the island?
I struggled with that first rule. We were woken up at ungodly times to do stupid drills—frog jumps, burpees, toe touches, running-in-place—and I didn’t see the point of this. We slept in uncomfortable dorms decorated with mosquito nets and snoring bodies. Even if I agreed with the logic, my body had other ideas. Every day, around 5 or 6 in the morning, the coordinators would storm into our rooms, brandishing deafening bells and wrangling us awake with a heaping serving of attitude.
Sometimes, I’d wake up and proceed to do the dumb drills. Other times, I’d sleep through the entire ordeal and escape any consequences. But a few times, I was warned by staff that I had to take things seriously.
Mind you, I had zero interest becoming a prefect. I was friends with prefects in the year above and I didn’t envy their lives. The downside was a lot of extra nonsense and the upside was very limited. At the time, we had a very erratic British principal who de-badged and re-badged prefects on a whim, sometimes on the same day. The whole thing seemed pointless to me.
Anyway, I promised to try to wake up for the drills. And I did. Until I didn’t.
One morning, a coordinator did the rounds and you could tell he was pissed. More pissed than usual. He had a list of frequent offenders—people who had missed the morning drills a couple times—and he rushed through our dorm rooms with a furious agenda. One by one, he sent us out to kneel outside. He was fed up—not sure if it was us that annoyed him, or something else. But we were clearly getting the brunt of his wrath.
We lay there with our knees on rocks and he ran us through a few punishments. I can’t remember exactly what we had to do. But nothing particularly egregious— physical punishments were a normal part of life back then. Viewed through a modern lens, I might yell child abuse. But we were used to it. I could write an entire book on the abuses of power and bullying we weathered in boarding school, but it would be a dark comedy not a tearjerker.
The coordinators told us to pack our bags and threatened to kick us off the island. All thirteen of us went into our rooms, packed our stuff and returned outside. I knew how to deal with adults like this—you have to beg and appeal to their ego—any sort of debate or argumentative energy will only cause the situation to explode—so I apologized and promised to do better. I promised to make the drills if I was kept on the island. It didn’t matter if I meant it, I had to perform.
But then…I realized I didn’t really care about being sent home. I didn’t care about the badge or prefect thing. The hierarchical Nigerian culture does not encourage challenges to authority…but as a fifteen year old, I remember hating doing things that didn’t make sense, just because an adult said we should do it. Especially when they didn’t have reasons and shouted at you. This critical, rebellious spirit is responsible for the few times I got in trouble in school—when I argued with my school principal and when I got suspended from the football team for not “appropriately greeting our coach”.
Once the realization set in, I considered my options. Okay, I already didn’t want to be a prefect so I wasn’t losing anything. If I could endure the faux-shame of leaving the island, then I’d be fine. Sure, I would have to explain what happened to my parents. But I wasn’t worried about that. I would go home and return to my school friends in a week.
The pissed coordinator returned and told us to kneel-crawl our way to the boat. Huuh. What does that even mean? “Get on your knees now and walk to the boat. Immediately!” The tone of his voice made it clear it wasn’t a question or suggestion. He wasn’t seeking feedback on his idea. But someone asked him why.
It must’ve been rhetorical. I’m sure the asker knew the reason. He couldn’t ask us to walk on our feet to the boat. That would be too straightforward and rational. He wanted to make a statement. The kind of performative nonsense that power-drunk elders in hierarchical societies love. Anything to subjugate and exercise their power over us.
Our options were limited—we couldn't run (we were on an island), we couldn’t beg (he was beyond the point of no return). So we dropped to our knees and began to kneel-crawl as instructed. I can’t remember the distance but probably a few hundred meters.
We dragged our fresh teenage knees through the harsh terrain where sticks and stones began to leave their marks on us. Our complaints about cuts and scabs fell on deaf ears—of course they would. The point was to teach us a lesson. To make sure we respected their authority and didn’t dare challenge them.
With each additional punt of my knee on the rugged rocky ground, the coordinators mocked and tried to diminish us. The name of the game was engineered fear. But I had already spent five years in boarding school at this point, so I was desensitized to this. You know they’re going to say some rubbish so you grab a shield and defend yourself. But I wonder about others who were less able to do this…some of those words could pierce deep if not thwarted away.
As we got closer, I started secretly looking forward to going home. My knees could heal in my air-conditioned room and I wouldn’t need to continue this performative nonsense. I didn’t have to play a silly game I didn’t want to win. But then someone amongst us started crying. I couldn’t tell if it was a perfected fake cry or if it was genuine. It was swiftly ignored.
We had eaten up most of the distance by now. The ferry was firmly in our sights. The ship that would take us from snake island back to the Apapa terminal where the return to normalcy could begin. Then, the coordinator made us stop. For no apparent reason. Maybe he wanted us to take one final look at the ferry before we boarded as if to solder fear and regret into our brains.
“You guys are lucky today”
Just like that—he told us to get up and take our bags back to our dorms. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Was this a test? A part of his game—if I got up too early, would he punish me twice as hard? Was I really not going home? I initially wasn’t looking forward to it but then I had started longing for it.
I was dreaming of comfortably using a clean bathroom again instead of letting nature take its course in the bush behind the dorm because I was so disgusted by the smeared poop all over the shared toilets—all over the walls, the sink, the stall doors—till today, I’m yet to see a more disgusting toilet situation.
More out of conditioning than honest feeling, we thanked him for letting us go. A half-sincere chorus of “thank you sirrrrrr” erupted from the group—with extra emphasis on the “sir”. We had to massage his ego and play up to his assumed authority so he could feel like “the man”. So he wouldn’t swiftly change his mind and make us do another round of dumb punishments again. He fell for it. Phew.
I got up, dropped my bag in my room again and ran over to play barefooted, street football with the lads.
Looking back, what can I say?
Sea school didn’t teach anybody “leadership”. It taught a few how to creatively avoid guards and teachers. It unfairly punished my friend for sneaking out to see a lady friend, when in fact, it was someone else. But how do you explain the truth to people who get off on shouting at you?
However, it was good for us to bond, albeit for a short while with students at less-privileged schools. I had fun playing football with them—we were all fifteen year old kids who wanted to have fun.
The week gave me some funny memories too. One day, we all had to jump into the water maybe twenty-five feet from the shore. Safety measures were in place: we all queued up, several coordinators were in the water doubling as lifeguards, and every child was asked if they could swim. Non-swimmers were handed life vests. One of my best friends claimed he could swim…merely to impress a girl. He dove into the lagoon with the confidence of an Olympic diver, then flailed around for a bit until the guard helped him out. We still laugh about this fourteen years later.
As for my sea school badge, it was suspended for eight months because I missed several morning workouts. If I wanted to be a prefect, that would’ve been devastating, but it’s a relic of a funny story for me.
Readers—Have you ever had a similar experience where you had to endure a pointless activity because an authority figure said so? Share your story in the comments!
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