Fresher

She packed three bags, two textbooks, and zero idea what was coming.

The first thing Sewa’s mother did when they pulled up to the university gate was pray.

Not a quick one. Not “God protect my daughter, amen, bye bye.” No. This was a full production. Engine still running. Handbrake up. Both hands on Sewa’s head. Eyes closed. Yoruba first, then English, then back to Yoruba when the English wasn’t carrying enough weight.

“Olorun, protect this my child. Don’t let any useless boy come near her. Block them, Father. Scatter their plans. Make her lecturers favour her. Let her not follow bad company. Let her come back to me the same way she is leaving this car.”

“Amen, Mummy.”

“AMEN,” her mother repeated, louder, like Sewa’s amen was too small for the size of the prayer.

They had driven from Ibadan that morning. Three hours on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Her mother talked the entire way. Don’t drink anything anybody gives you. Don’t go to night parties. Don’t let any boy carry your bag for you because “that’s how it starts.” Face your studies. Call home every day. If anything happens, call your father first because “he knows people in government.” If your father doesn’t pick up, call her. If she doesn’t pick up, call God directly.

Sewa nodded to all of it. She had been nodding for eighteen years.

Her father hadn’t come. He’d said goodbye at the house that morning in Bodija, shook her hand like she was reporting for national service, and said, “Make us proud, Adesewa.” Then he went back inside to listen to his radio. That was his way. Alhaji Kayode Akinola was not a man who showed feelings. He showed expectations.

The hostel was not what the brochure promised.

The brochure had shown a clean room with two beds, a reading desk, curtains, and a window with sunlight pouring in like a vitamin D advert. The brochure was a liar.

Block C, Room 14 had four beds pushed against the walls, one ceiling fan that was spinning like it had given up on life, a window that opened but had no net, and a bathroom that Sewa looked at once and decided she would rather hold her bladder until her kidneys filed a complaint.

Her mother looked around the room. Then she looked at Sewa. Then she looked at the room again.

“Adesewa. Is this where they want you to sleep?”

“Mummy, it’s fine.”

“This is not fine. Where is the curtain? Where is the reading table? And what is that smell? Ah ahn. What is that smell?”

“Mummy.”

“I am asking a genuine question.”

“Mummy, please. I’ll manage. Students live here every year.”

Her mother opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then she sat on the bare mattress, placed her hand on her chest, and said, “Let me just pray one more time.”

She prayed again. Sewa stood there and let it happen because arguing with her mother about prayer was like arguing with Lagos traffic. You would never win and you’d only exhaust yourself trying.

By the time her mother finally left, with tears, with more prayers, with three separate hugs and a whispered “don’t forget who raised you,” Sewa was standing alone in the room with three bags, a cooler of jollof rice her mother had packed at 5am, and the loudest silence she had ever experienced.

She was alone. Truly alone. For the first time in her life.

No mother calling “Sewa! Sewa!” from the kitchen. No father’s radio playing news in the parlour. No younger brother blasting Asake from his phone. Just her and this room and this mattress and this ceiling fan going round and round like it was counting down to something.

She sat on the bed. Took a breath. Pulled out her phone.

Then the door burst open.

“Roommate!”

A girl walked in like she owned the building. Tall. Hijab. Big smile. She was carrying a bluetooth speaker in one hand and a bag of plantain chips in the other. Behind her, her side of the room was already set up. Bedsheet. Pillow. Mosquito net. Small mirror taped to the wall. A kettle on the floor. She had clearly arrived hours ago and made herself at home.

“You must be the last one. I’m Zainab. Za-i-nab. Don’t call me Zee, don’t call me Zai, don’t call me Z. Just Zainab. Plantain chips?”

She shoved the bag toward Sewa before Sewa could answer.

“I’m Sewa.”

“Sewa! Adesewa? Beautiful name. Yoruba girl, abi? I can always tell. You people have this face like you’re calculating something.” She laughed at her own joke. Loudly. “Where are you from?”

“Ibadan.”

“Ibadan! I’m Kano. So between the two of us we’ve already covered half of Nigeria. We just need somebody from the South-South and we can form a whole delegation.”

Sewa laughed. She hadn’t expected to laugh this quickly.

Zainab talked while Sewa unpacked. About the hostel water situation. “It comes at 5am. If you miss it, you’re bathing with pure water sachet and regret.” About the cafeteria. “Don’t eat the beans on Monday. I’m telling you as a friend. I ate it my first day and I saw my ancestors.” About which security guards were friendly and which ones would lock the gate at 9pm sharp and pretend they couldn’t hear you knocking.

She talked like someone who had done this before. And she had. She mentioned, casually, that she’d spent a year at another university before transferring here. When Sewa asked which one, Zainab said “one school up north” and changed the subject so smoothly that Sewa barely noticed.

Almost.

---

Sharon arrived at 4pm. In a white Range Rover Evoque. With a driver. And two suitcases that looked like they cost more than Sewa’s entire school fees.

She walked into the room, looked around, and said nothing for a full ten seconds. Her face did all the talking.

Zainab grinned. “Welcome to paradise.”

Sharon put her bag down slowly. Like she was lowering a newborn onto a dirty floor. “Is there… only one bathroom?”

“One bathroom. One toilet. Four of us. Welcome to university life.”

Sharon looked at Sewa. Sewa looked at Sharon. Something passed between them. Not friendship yet. Not hostility. Just two girls realizing they had landed on the same strange planet from very different rockets.

“I’m Sewa.”

“Sharon.” She attempted a smile. Small but real. “My father said this place would build character.”

“Is it building?” Zainab asked.

“It’s demolishing first.”

All three of them laughed. And for a moment, Room 14 didn’t feel so bad.

Night came. The fourth roommate still hadn’t arrived. The room was dark except for phone screens. Zainab was already asleep, one arm over her face, snoring gently like someone who had made peace with life. Sharon was on her bed with AirPods in, watching something on her iPad.

Sewa lay on her back, staring at the ceiling fan. Still spinning that same tired spin. The mattress was thin. The pillow was flat. Somewhere outside, someone was playing Burna Boy from a speaker. Somewhere else, girls were laughing in the hallway. A door slammed. Someone shouted “who opened my provision?” Life was happening everywhere around her and she was lying in the middle of it, trying to figure out where she fit.

Her phone buzzed.

Mummy: Sewa have you eaten? Have you prayed? Lock your door. Don’t sleep near the window. Mosquito will bite you. Call me first thing in the morning. I love you my daughter.

Then another message, thirty seconds later: Have you prayed??

She typed back: Yes ma. I’ve prayed. Goodnight.

She hadn’t prayed. She’d completely forgotten. Her mother would faint, resurrect, and faint again if she knew.

Sewa put the phone down. Closed her eyes. Listened to the fan. Listened to the campus breathing around her.

She was here. Actually here. Away from Ibadan. Away from her mother’s prayers and her father’s radio and the bedroom she’d slept in since she was six years old.

She was on her own.

And she had absolutely no idea what was coming.

END OF EPISODE 1

Next Episode: “Registration” – They said registration takes one day. They lied.

That hostel room. That bathroom. That ceiling fan. If you’ve been to a Nigerian university, you KNOW. 😂 But Sewa has no idea what this semester is about to teach her. Drop your own fresher stories in the comments.