The First Bell: Origins of a Calling
The road to Ijesha Community Secondary School is the color of old rust, and at half past five in the morning, it belongs entirely to Ngozi. She walks it the way she has walked it for eleven years, sandals slapping against packed earth, a raffia bag of chalk and exercise books swinging from her shoulder, the sky above her still holding onto the last of its indigo. Somewhere behind the hills a cock crows, ragged and insistent, as if it too resents having to announce another day.
She likes this hour. Likes it because the school is hers alone before the children come and claim it, before the noise and the need arrive with them. She likes the quiet the way some women like their first cup of tea — as a small mercy before the demands of the world descend.
The gate is unlocked, its hinges singing a note so familiar she barely registers it anymore, though this morning it seems louder, more insistent, as if it, too, is greeting the new term. Ngozi pushes through and crosses the compound, her feet finding the worn path between tufts of grass that no one has cut since the rains began. The administration block squats to her left, its zinc roof scarred with patches of rust that map continents…