Post riot gospel

When we got back to the campus on Friday night, the riots were over. It has been said 31 students were arrested. The local media was telling about the riots but they didn’t really told the reason behind the actions. Some people who I told about my riot experience felt sorry I had faced such a thing in Zambia. It gave me a picture that the kind of political activity of young people doesn’t seem to taken seriously.

For the rest of the weekend the sounds of the riots where replaced by the sounds of gospel music all around the campus area. So you couldn’t miss out you’re in a real christian country. Yesterday, one assisting teacher at the Uni told there is a joke that says when you join the University, you need to choose between the student centre (a bar) and the christian centre (a church). And I guess it wasn’t only a joke.

However, instead of making that choice I joined the basketball game. On Sunday, I saw a guy carrying a Spalding basketball, and asked him where to play. He said they were starting a game in the sport hall in 10 minutes. Just in case, I waited for an hour and joined the game. We played at a dusty indoor court, and the game was really good. The guys were playing as a team, passing each other (even to me) and not yelling and arguing, something very opposite to my experiences of playing ball with guys in Nigeria. What I saw on the basketball court can be converted to other places, too. I hate to generalise but probably it doesn’t come as a surprise that this place is indeed more relaxed and peaceful compared to Nigeria.

After the game I run across the campus to our residence at the Common Wealth Centre. The campus area is huge, like nothing I ever seen before. There are more than 10 000 students studying at the campus. But there is housing for only about 4 000 people. That had left to situation where in a 2 people’s room there are sometimes even 5 people residing. I just wonder how it is to study in that kind of environment.

Girls and boys have their own blocks of course. And you can easily tell which one belongs to the girls. The windows of the girls’ rooms are beautifully decorated with the hanging clothes and high heels. I wished to have a pic of that but so far I haven’t really activated myself as a photographer. I guess I’ve been trying to avoid of looking like a real tourist. But soon I need to do something about my anti-picture attitude or my blog will be very boring.