Silence all around the campus, three young men and a girl pace around the parking lot opposite the Arts Theatre, sharing jokes and catching up on old times. Amidst occasional passage of cars between them and the Theatre across the road, there were smiles and jabs. They were young, and happy.
Then two girls walk by. One of them was white, possibly American. He had been told that a few American students might have arrived on this campus for a few weeks of study. Could these be some of them? The one in front – if American – would not be older than twenty years. She had dark shades on. The other was black but could also be foreign going by their pesky walk and general attitude to the campus environment.
“Oyinbo, bawo ni?” Segun quipped as they walked by, half smiling but not totally with an expectation of a fast informed response.
“Hey Dudu, how are you too?” She responded, just as quickly, pronouncing the dudu like doo-doo. And she kept walking, perhaps even giggling with her friends as she went away.
She had won. It was too sudden for Segun to grasp, and the girl had already gone too far from him to hear whatever he had to come up with afterwards. “Touche,” someone said, laughing, and it was one of those moments of fun enlightenment.
His friends could only gape, giggle and to laugh at their own errant selves, and the young quick-witted foreign student now forever etched in their memory.
