From the baobab to the Oakland.
A baobab begins as a seed you could lose in your palm. So did we.
Ɔdadeɛ means baobab
The school began in 1938 at Odumase-Krobo, in the shade of a baobab. New boys were once initiated at its foot. When the school moved to Legon in 1968, the tree stayed behind and the name came with us.
The baobab stands for knowledge, resourcefulness and strength. It is slow, patient and very hard to uproot. Every boy who passes through Presec is called by its name.
We came as seedlings
We came with trunks and chop boxes, our names written inside our collars. The gate was taller than we were. So was everything else.
A bell taught us the hours. A house gave us a colour to shout for. Strangers took the beds beside ours and, without asking, became our brothers.
We grew toward the light
The blue shirts faded and the shorts grew short. We learned the long way round to the dining hall, the short way round a senior, and which footsteps to know by sound.
We filled the assembly hall with one voice and sang until the louvres shook. We found that a house is a family you would lose your voice for.
Somewhere between prep and lights out the boys we were began to leave, and none of us saw them go.
We left as trees
Then it was our turn to be the oldest ones. We pressed our whites and knotted our ties, sat the papers that had waited three years for us, and took the photographs we are still passing around.
We walked out through the gate that once looked so tall. It had not shrunk. We had grown.
The roots still hold
The baobab does not hurry. It keeps the rain and outlives the drought. Ten years on we are scattered across cities and callings, and we are still one tree.
On the thirtieth of October we go back to stand around one fire and take the name in full.
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- brothers in the registry
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- cities we call home
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- countries
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- houses
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- classes
