Lady teachers and swollen bellies

When I was a kid I didn’t like female teachers. They would come at the beginning of the term all nice and dainty, but soon their bellies started growing for no apparent reason.

Their pretty faces will become contorted and distorted and they kept hoarding saliva in the mouth. I thought that was not very civil.

And when will the belly of Mrs stop growing out of proportion? I would wonder who was the bastard that inflicted Mrs with a balloon stomach. Yes the bastard! Who did he think he was?

Didn’t he know that Mrs couldn’t carry such a belly all by herself? And that she kept marking correct arith­metic work wrong?

I often got angry and went to my Dad to complain about the Mrs “She marked this answer wrong”.

I’d tell Papa, tearfully. “Bring it let’s see!

My Dad would look at the sum. “I think you are right,” he would say. “I wonder why she marked it wrong.”

“That woman, she is always doz­ing!” I’d tell my Papa. “This morning she tried to vomit, but nothing came. And half the time she is angry with everybody”.

“What might be the reason?”

“I think it is her belly. It is too large. Or is it the saliva in her mouth?”

I decided to ask Mrs why she was keeping saliva in her mouth.

The next morning I went to school and we were told that Mrs had gone on “maternity leave.” And what did that mean?

We were told that soon, she would be having a baby. Nonsense! How pos­sibly could a baby as large as the one in Mrs stomach come out? Through which exit? They must be joking!

Sooner than expected, the class was informed that Mrs’ had delivered a bouncing baby boy. And so what? She was supposed to be in class teaching us English grammar not de­livering bouncing babies.

Meanwhile, the male teacher who took over was quite different. We all noticed that contrary to expectation, his belly did not grow. At least not frontally or laterally. And he did not store saliva in his mouth. More so, he was arithmetically alert. The class was happy although he liked caning the pupils.

The man did not doze and he’d take us to PE and also teach us Christmas songs. He spoke decent English and marked the exercises on time. Then one morning he an­nounced to us that a female trainee teacher would be coming to teach us for a while. She was from a training college. I wondered whether this one was also afflicted with a swollen belly.

PRETTY

She turned out to be a very young pretty daisy. I liked her! “My name is Miss Amoah,” she intoned. “I’ll be teaching you for the next few weeks.”

I looked at her belly. I needed to reassure myself that she was not encumbered with a ‘bouncing baby.’ My goodness! Or was it because she was Miss and not a Mrs? What was the difference anyway? “I hope you are all good boys and girls.”

“Yes Miss!” we shouted in alacrity.

“I don’t like boys who talk in class. They end up as gutter clean­ers!”

We all laughed heartily and drummed on our desks. Certainly the Miss had a sense of humour in her head. How did she know that such boys ended in the gutter? And will they wear Wellington boots when doing the clean out?

“And girls who talk in class, do you know where they end up?” she asked.

“Yes!” we chorused.

“Who can tell me?”

“Farm!” one pupil said. “No!”

“In market selling tomato and garden eggs.”

“No!” said Miss Amoah.

“Hell!” (Laughter)

I raised my hand, I thought I knew this one.

“Yes you there!” Miss Amoah pointed at me.

“She’d end up with a swollen belly full of babies!”

The entire class convulsed into laughter. And it was Miss Amoah who laughed the most.

She couldn’t conjecture how I could come up with the idea of a distended belly containing babies just because a girl talked too much in class. But she realised upon a little bit of cogitation that there could be a link between talkative and babies.

DROPOUT

After all, isn’t it those who are idle talkers who aren’t serious with their academic work and end up getting pregnant and dropping out of school?

Last weekend, I watched it live on television when President Kufuor presented three cars to three lady teachers as the best teachers in Sikaman. I protested loudly. What have the male teachers been doing? Bearing babies?

My wife was overjoyed that fe­male teachers were making a mark. But my daughter was a bit skeptical. “How were they adjudged the best?” she asked me.

“Ask your mother!”

This article was first published on Saturday, November 12, 2005

Merari Alomele’s

• Female teachers bellies starts growing for no apparent reason

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