Vandal Incursion part 1

this is the first part of the story of what happened at Volta Hall one saturday morning last month. by now you know how much i like setting the scene, so this is a word-picture of the university of ghana


Volta hall, where i live, is a compound entered through the porters lodge, where they have some benches, a counter, and five guys who sit around all day under a fan and try not to work too hard. They are the ones you turn your key into when you leave, pick it up from, get free toilet paper from, ask for help carrying heavy things, etc..they are porters in every sense of the word, including the one where if you bring them ice cream they will let you do almost anything, including sneaking boys out of volta hall after midnight. Because one of their most important jobs is to protect the sanctity of volta hall from nefarious males between the hours of midnight and eight am. because of course nothing bad happens before midnigt. ANYWAY. Up the steps, through the porters lodge, is a really pretty courtyard with a (nonfunctioning) fountain, pretty designs in the stone paving, grassy areas, tress, and little white pots full of exotic tropical vegetation (that got a little splattered with white paint last month when the porters repainted all the pots, pushing aside leaves as they did). Its pretty. straight through the courtyard is another set of steps leading up to the dining hall (which looks like the inside of a convent, no joke). To the right out the courtyard is a path leading to the dormitories, two long rows on either side of the path and a four-story 'annex' at the end of it, a square with another courtyard and tree in the middle, rooms on two facing sides, and the bathroom/laundryroom/kitchen rooms on the other set of facing sides. I live on the third floor of the annex, on p block (which only makes me feel like an inmate sometimes) all the way in one corner. its a nice room, and i can walk out the front door and look over the balcony to the coutyard below, bisected by cement paths, covered in patchy grass, and dominated by the best climbing tree known to man. Its a nice place to live. [volta's color is yellow, btw]

Just up the street from Volta Hall is Commonwealth Hall, which has turned out more scholars, judges, politicians and general movers/shakers than any other hall at the university. It has a reputation for more 'firsts' or high honors graduates, by about 90%, than any other hall. Commonwealth boys (single sex dorm, like volta but for guys) have VERY high academic standards and in addition they are the group that holds the university accountable for things like corruption, stupid policies, etc. The motto is something to do with the value of truth and action. So, you say, fine and upstanding young men who are the future of the country staying up burning the midnight oil to earn those good grades and keep the beurocrats on their toes. Well, that is only half of the picture. The other half is that when you work really hard you end up playing really hard too, and commonwealth boys are legendary for their parties, their rivalry with Mensah Sarbah Hall (which ten years ago resulted in a MASSIVE fight in which four people actually died, dead style), and their general shenanigans. Their nickname for themselves is the Vandals, (which they have some acrostic poem for, in which each letter stands for something good, like vigilance, academics, niftyness, decency, angelic natures, leaders of the pack, sympathy, or something like that. It is not supposed to have anything to do with vandalism in the destruction of public property sense of the word). Their color is red. Oh, and they are the ;'husbands' of the volta girls in the sense that the chife of Commonwealth has a special responsability to the queen mother of volta. And the whole chief thing is not really a joke like you would think. Apparently NO ONE sees the chief, his retinue of bodyguards are specially trained, and there is a complicated initiation to get close to him. As a prank last month the commonwealth boys kidnapped the Sarbah chief and held him hostage overnight up on commonwealth hill. All of this is completely serious, and these pranks have the import of ritual. None of what follows is a joke or exaggeration in any appreciable way.