Ode to my Hope Waddell

Ode to my Hope Waddell

 

Sometimes just being me is being you

That I lived all of 11 years in your campus

Eleven years from childhood to adolescence

Five of those eleven, as student

I just live with traits of you in me

 

Then being my father’s son,

I could just but imbibe more of you

Because my father was also you

Having passed through your tutelage years afore

So, loving my father was loving you

 

Father was much more attached to you

Later teaching there 20 straight years

And he told me the tradition runs longer

His own father was also a traveller there

So I am just a third generation of tradition

 

Today it is 122 years long

Since you appeared on the Calabar firmament

And began shaping and changing lives

From far and near they came

And near and far their influence go

 

So whenever I reference you

When your name drops off my speech and writing

Whenever I put on a memento of you

It is not just because I choose to brag

It is that the Hope Waddell foundation in me is solid

 

(Obo Effanga, March 8, 2017)

*On the 122nd anniversary of Hope Waddell Training Institution.

Written by
Obo Effanga
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