A Chronicle of The Excursion to Port Harcourt Shopping Mall- The Spar By GOJEHOTA Students

The need to attempt a review of our mind boggling visit to the PH Shopping Mall is really exciting…thanks to the help of the Trinity. Dear readers, you will be getting double dose of the entire excursion episode in this newsletter, because we have painstakingly chronicled everything that happened at the Spar; adding to it a mould of melodrama for good measures.

We have written to amuse, inform and narrate the excursion experience. So relax as we take you on an intellectual trip down the memory lane. On that day, we were so neatly dressed like never before. The buses were decorated with the school’s logo and it was really fun when we saw the school drivers packing in cartoons of biscuits and maltina into the buses. Wow! Students like biscuits!

Our journey from the school premises down to the Shopping Mall was not really fun, no thanks to the endless traffic congestion in the garden city that seems to have defiled every possible solution. Anyway, we made do with what we had because we didn’t have any other option. We managed to overcome the traffic hurdle and before we could shout: GOJEHOTA! We were already at the Spar. Thank God! We made it at last!

On arrival, old friends, especially classmates were chatting up, new friends were meeting as usual, and some seeming ‘strangers’ were staring at each other anticipating who will make the first move. All of a sudden we heard a thunderous sound: “all of you, queue up immediately”! It was our Coordinator, with the might of a war veteran, little wonder; he nearly tore the walls apart. I was amazed at the moment, confused yet still amazed.

Obviously, within a twinkle of an eye, we are already inside the Mall. Right inside the mall was the picture fest; and we struck all sorts of poses, made all sorts of faces and said all sorts of cheese while the camera clicked away blinding us with its flash. The Spar was everything it promised to be and even more. In our typical GOJEHOTA manner, we broke into small groups and did our shopping. Thanks to our parents for equipping us sufficiently with cash. It was little shopping here, a little ride there, and some games was all that was needed to complete our shopping experiences.

It was really grand and fun filled as the students saw many beautiful things of life. The ‘Escalator’ experience for some students was worth the money spent, in fact, it soothed us ‘pitter-patter’; the hullabaloo was understandable expected; and some students for the first time in their lives entered the lifts to different parts of the building. Awww!

Ermm…, it was also an ample opportunity for some students to shop and get some basic things which they needed as part of their up-keep in the hostel. Sadly, some students didn’t go there with any money. Anyway, maybe that affected the extent they enjoyed the outing. We appeal to parents to always equip their children with money anytime we are embarking on such a memorable experience.

One would have taught that the excursion would last forever, but it didn’t, minutes turned into hours, and before we know it, another voice came, : “It’s time to go back to school”. Hurriedly, like Cinderella, we left the Spar, and promised to come back soonest after such beautiful experiences.

Am sure, someone must have intimated our drivers that we are already very eager to go back to the school and share our experiences and shopping items with our friends, as he didn’t waste our time on the road. Even in our various buses, we continued with our picture mania, struck-a-pose, looked-at-the camera, and said-cheese!; which became a second nature to us. Thanks to our seniors that fed us with comic therapy. They comically forced us to keep cracking our ribs like the audience in “A Night of a Thousand Laughs”, from the beginning till the end. It was really grand and fun filled. Thanks to the help of the Trinity.

Written by:

Salami Oluwatamilore, Nzereogu GodsFavour & Michael Queen Esther. JS2