As night falls in the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Hall, one would think students would either be in bed resting from a full day of classes or slaving it in the reading as they attempt to cover their syllabus. However, whether it is night or the early hours of the morning, one thing is constant, the sound of feet walking to and fro the hostel to fetch water before the inevitable happens –water finishing.
Built on top of a hill, the Obafemi Awolowo Hall is hard to miss. Apart from the grandeur of the hostel, it serves as home to over a thousand female undergraduate and postgraduate students of the University of Ibadan bringing to life the famous saying, “Water is life”.
As awoites, this writer being one of them, tot their buckets ranging in different sizes, one cannot help but liken our situation to a competition where awoites are the players, and water is the ultimate prize. Let the Water Games begin!
Contestant One: The Strategic Water Hustlers
This writer is proud to proclaim that she is a bonafide member of this category. We live true to our motto – Early to bed, early to fetch. We are the ones that sleep with one eye open, have our alarms ringing by 5am and rush to the taps to take our rightful position as the first to fetch water.
We normally come with all the buckets we can find and start our morning carrying buckets full of water to our rooms. It may seem like a stressful endeavor, but the blissful smiles on our faces when awoites announce that water has finished makes it worth it, after all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Our greatest fear is to wake up late and end up as number 35 on the queue. It is a big blow to our track record of being the first. So we do whatever we can to avoid such fate even if it means setting multiple alarms!
Contestant Two: Awoites, the Explorers
Quite a number of awoites fall under this category. They are the ones that wake up an hour after dawn just to realize that the water at their block has finished, hence they go over and beyond in search for water. They are also known as the ‘ground readers’ as they are perfected the art of following and reading the water patches on the floor to know what block water is available.
They are also good communicators as they have to ask people lucky enough to get water, where they fetched their water from. Once they’ve gotten their answer, they embark on a journey from one block to the other, exploring different taps in search of water. If they are lucky, they would find water before they’ve trekked too far. If not, this writer wishes them good luck.
Contestant Three: The ‘I cannot stress myself’ awoites
These are the queens that for some strange reason ended up in Awo Hall and therefore don’t have the survival instinct needed to live in Awo. Thankfully, water-boys always come to their rescue. Seeing as they are regular customers, all they need to do is drop their buckets or kegs outside their rooms, call their preferred water boy, and for a fee of #100 and above, have water brought to them.
This group of awoites does not believe in the saying ‘if the mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.” For them, the water would always come to them, come rain, come sunshine –so long as water-boys remain in Awo.
Contestant Four: The Well Fetchers
One common attribute of female students of Awo Hall is the strength they are rumoured to have, but this group of awoites strive for something more, in the form of biceps and triceps. They are the definition of ‘if life throws you lemon, make lemonade’ and in this sense, their lemonade is in the form of the drawer/fetcher they bring with them to hostel.
This group don’t have the strength to search for water like the explorers, rather they assemble themselves by the nearest available well, lower their fetchers in the well and bring out water –which is mostly colored than clean. It is this group that can be found washing even when Awo’s tank is as dry as the desert. They might seem like the envy of awoites, but one look at water is enough to change a person’s mind.
Contestant Five: The Optimistic Awoites
This article cannot be complete without mentioning the long-suffering awoites who are the literal representation of little droplets of water make a mighty ocean or rather a full bucket. These ones don’t care for declarations that there’s no water, rather they see little droplets of water in the tank as an optimistic sign.
They leave their buckets at the tap for hours and return to find their bucket full. These people are also able to pass their optimism to other awoites as one after the other; awoites line their buckets behind theirs in the hopes that at one point, the little drops of water would also fill their buckets. Some are lucky enough and get water, while others leave the same way they came.
Contestant Six: The True Amazons
When you see these awoites on the road, it’s a must that you shout ‘Greatest AWOITES’. These ones are the true examples of what it means to be resilient. When water finishes, and many students have lost hope in bathing, these ones are not deterred. They turn to sachets of pure water as the next best thing and do the needful.
They are also known to go to well outside the hostel and are even rumored to fetch water from Awba Dam. Whatever the case might be, these ones understand the full mandate of being an Amazon and this writer is extremely proud of them, but hopes never to be them.
It still amazes this writer how trusting awoites can be to keep their buckets in lines over night, expecting some angelic beings or kind Awoite to fetch water for them. Well, Miracle no dey tire Jesus. We are after all amazons joined by hostel, so in any case, let the Water Games continue!
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OBAFEMI AWOLOWO HALL PRESS 
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