The girls’ dorm was a beehive of activity on my first Saturday morning at the boarding school in Nigeria.

“Alright, girls. Line up! It’s time to get your hair washed!” One of our Big Sisters (a junior high girl assigned to help us) herded sixteen of us first graders into the bathroom.

We formed a line that stretched out the door of the large, open room in the first-grade hall. Three other big sisters stood in front of the sinks in a row under the clouded-glass window on the far wall. They scrubbed the sudsy heads of three little girls. 

Water splashed over the side of the sink as one girl cried. “You got my shirt all wet!”

While the other girls stood in line, chatting and laughing, I nervously twisted my hair around my pointer finger. The  medicine-y smell of the shampoo made me feel sick. 

When my turn came, I stepped up to the sink, stood on tiptoes, and ducked my head under the tap. A shiver shot down my spine as the stream of cold water ran over my hair and neck.

Trying not to splash her clean blouse, the Big Sister lathered up her palms and scrubbed my straight, brown hair. Trickles of water crept down my forehead, reaching the corners of my eyes.

“Ow, ow, ow! My eyes are burning!” I cried.

“Stop squirming,” she said. “You’re fine.”

“But the soap! It’s in my eyes!” The homemade, lye-based shampoo was a red-hot lava flow, with a slow but steady creep I couldn’t halt.

She pressed a cloth into my hands, saying, “Here, use this. Now, settle down.” I grabbed the washrag and tried to stand still while balancing on my toes and holding my head under the faucet.

Comfort in Friendship

When my hair was squeaky clean, I finally rinsed my eyes, but the sting lingered. I padded across the wet cement floor to the narrow wooden bench beside the laundry bin. There I sat, straight and tall, while another Big Sister combed out my hair. With each vigorous stroke, my head jerked backward as she battled the tangles on my tender scalp.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried hard to stop unwanted tears. I couldn’t bear being called a cry baby again, like yesterday when I fell and skinned my knee.

Once finished, she ordered, “Now, run out to the playground and have fun with the other kids.”

“Grrrr. I don’t want to go outside. I want to stay in my room and play.”

“But you must go outside. All growing kids need sunshine and exercise! Or else you’ll get rickets.”

My shoulders slumped. I’ve never heard of rickets. Sliding off the bench, I shuffled into the hall and nearly bumped into a classmate. Sheena stood on the other side of the doorway peering in.

“I don’t want to go outside either. Let’s hide in my room!” Sheena giggled, grabbed my hand, and down the hall we raced to the bedroom she shared with three other girls. “We can camp out in the wardrobe and read until the lunch bell rings,” she declared.

Together we turned the pages in her favorite book, Madeline, and I exclaimed in delight over the bright, colorful pictures. Sheena recited the story, one her mother had read often to her, of a young girl who lived away from home like we did. Dressed in matching yellow coats and hats, the young French student and her classmates happily walked through their town “in two straight lines.”

Finding My Way

Did  Madeline like living at her school? Did she have to have her hair washed with cold water and smelly shampoo that burned? 

Sitting cross-legged in our hideaway, I felt tears filling my eyes for Madeline and me. Three weeks ago I celebrated my sixth birthday, surrounded by a dozen friends in the sunny front yard of our rural mission station in the village of Egbe, Nigeria. Now I was four hundred miles from my cozy home. I had been in this dorm for a week, but it felt like a year. I will never stop feeling homesick, I thought. Without my mom and dad, I was lost–far from them and everything familiar, safe, and dependable.

Blinking back tears, I confided how every night in bed my throat got all choked up. I could hardly breathe. It felt like I had a pile of heavy rocks on my chest. “Who will take care of me here? The hair wash wasn’t fun like when my mom washes my hair in our warm bathtub.”

My caring confidante said, “My mom taught me a Bible verse that comforts me when I’m lonely: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.’”

My face scrunched up. I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I need a friend I can hug, not a shepherd to tell me what to do.”

Sheena patted my hand. “I’ll be your friend.”

I leaned over and hugged her shoulders. She hugged me back. Her sweet promise of friendship soothed the sting of the morning’s hair washing.

Sheena (on the right) and me (on the left with the scraggly hair)

* * * * *

But on Monday, classes started up again, and tears puddled in my eyes every hour. During my school lessons, everything the teacher said was confusing. 

Arithmetic was hard to understand, and the numbers blurred as I stared at the paper. A tear fell, smudging the ink.

For the whole week, a lump was lodged in my throat. Every day some sweet memory of home popped up, then heaving sobs followed as the buried sadness bubbled up. My heart felt as though it had been ripped out and left behind at Egbe..

However, by Friday, I decided crying was too much trouble. I didn’t like how my face ended up a blubbery mess, and my nose stayed swollen and bright red for an hour. In my free time, I asked the other girls to show me how to play hopscotch. Some second graders taught me the games of jacks and pick-up sticks which we played on the wide, front steps of the girls dorm.

When I tripped and fell on the playground and skinned my knee, I wanted to sit and cry. But I knew I’d then relive the pain of homesickness. So I hopped right up. “I’m fine! I’m fine!” 

The girls around me cheered. Blinking back stinging tears, I promised myself I could cry after lights out when no one would see me.

That night in bed when the prickle of tears came again, I talked myself out of crying. I don’t want to get all stuffed up, because then I can’t breathe. And once I start crying, I won’t be able to stop.

My brain settled down and my heart became numb. Across my sleepy mind drifted a calming thought. I made it through one whole day without crying.

Mommy would be proud of me.

Looking Back

The boarding school idea was the best option the mission came up with to educate the hundreds of missionary, Nigerian, and expatriate kids under its care. But without a good system of checks and balances, the system failed many KA children.

Being sent to boarding school for ten years–torn away from my parents beginning at age six–was a horrific rupture to my psyche. Living under such a rigid structure for months at a stretch left marks I wouldn’t fully understand until much later. And things got worse–arbitrary punishments, force-feeding, censored letters home.

By the end of my first semester, I wasn’t allowed to stay close with the one friend I had. The dorm staff decided it was unhealthy to have an exclusive friendship and required us to split up and play with others. They removed my source of stability, comfort, and support.

In 2017, I began writing these childhood stories. I knew I had life-long challenges because of the trauma of separation from family and subsequent lack of nurture at the school. As I delved into the memories, more details surfaced regarding the atmosphere of control using shame and fear of harsh punishment. This vignette, first published on my blog in July 2018, shares one of those defining moments. Click here if you want to read that original blog post.

What I Know Now

Recently I’ve been able to share my story with current leaders of SIM, the mission we were under. A story telling process has begun whereby we’re able to help them understand the extent of the historical harm. Thankfully they have been receptive and are listening well and working hard to understand. The conversation has opened up and will soon include all those who wish to participate in the process.