School Under Mango Trees

Chapter 4

The old mango trees stood tall and wise on the far edge of Umuokoro village, their leaves rustling like pages of forgotten stories. Beneath their wide shade sat rows of wooden benches and children in sun-faded uniforms, some barefoot, some holding broken pencils. This was Umuokoro Community Primary School—and to Adaeze, it was a palace of dreams.

School wasn't perfect. There were no walls, no ceiling fans, and no tiled floors. The "classrooms" were divided by invisible lines scratched into the sand. When it rained, classes were dismissed. When the sun burned too hot, students took turns fanning each other with exercise books. But none of that mattered to Adaeze. Because in this place, she came alive.

From the first day she held a chalk and wrote her name—A-D-A-E-Z-E—she knew education was her ticket out of struggle. She was quick with numbers, sharp with comprehension, and fierce in debate. Teachers began to notice. Even the headmaster once pulled her aside and said, "My girl, your mind is too bright to stay in the village forever."

But brilliance didn't shield her from hardship.

Most days, Adaeze went to school on an empty stomach. She would boil water in the morning and sip it slowly, tricking her body into thinking it had eaten. During lunch, while other children brought rice wrapped in nylon or fresh buns from the bakery, Adaeze quietly nibbled on dried groundnuts or nothing at all. But still, she never missed a day. Hunger could weaken her body, but never her will.

Her books were second-hand, filled with old scribbles. Her sandals had holes in the soles, patched over and over with thread. Yet when she stood in front of the class to recite, or when she bent over her math problems, Adaeze glowed.

She always sat at the front row, close to the chalkboard, under the oldest mango tree. Its bark was cracked and its branches bent low, as though it, too, had seen many hard seasons and still stood strong. Just like her.

But as Adaeze grew older—curves forming, voice maturing—a new kind of challenge emerged. One that had nothing to do with hunger or exams.

Whispers began.

"She's ripe for marriage now."

"A fine girl like this should be in her husband's house."

"What's the point of too much book when she can be a wife and mother?"

Adaeze heard it from market women, from old men who clicked their tongues, even from relatives who thought they were giving wise advice.

By sixteen, three marriage proposals had come. One from a widower with four children. Another from a man who lived in the city and wanted a "well-mannered village girl." The third was a local palm wine tapper who claimed dreams had shown him she was his "destiny helper."

Mama Nkechi turned each of them down with polite firmness. But Adaeze knew that in many homes, hunger would've made her a bride by now.

What kept her safe, surprisingly, was not just her mother's stubbornness—but her brothers' fierce protection.

Okechukwu once chased a man twice his size out of the compound for daring to ask for Adaeze's hand.

"Go and marry your age mates!" he shouted, waving a machete. "She's going to university!"

The twins, Emeka and Ifeanyi, spread word across the village that any man who dared come near their sister again would be "greeted with thunder." Even Chinedu, the poet, wrote a sharp letter to the town council, denouncing the early marriage of girls in their community, and it was read aloud at a village meeting.

Adaeze was humbled. She'd fought so long to protect them—as their second mother, their comforter, their peacemaker—and now, they were fighting for her.

But even with her brothers standing guard, the pressure lingered. Some teachers began to doubt her commitment. "Girls like you don't finish secondary school," one male teacher said once. "You'll see. You'll marry before you write WAEC."

Adaeze went home that day and cried into her mother's lap. "Mama, am I wrong for wanting more?"

Mama Nkechi looked her square in the eye. "My daughter, they see your beauty and want to cage you. But I see your destiny, and I will never let them steal it."

That night, Adaeze pulled out her dog-eared textbooks and read until the lantern burned out.

She was determined—not just to prove them wrong—but to prove herself right.

She would rise—not just for her mother, not just for her brothers—but for every girl who had sat under a mango tree with a hungry stomach and a head full of dreams.

The exams came. She wrote them all. And when the results were posted, Adaeze's name stood proudly at the top of the list—a scholarship offered by a foundation that had heard her story. Her dreams had just cracked open the sky.

The old mango trees stood silent that day, their leaves dancing gently in the wind. And underneath, Adaeze wept—not because she had made it, but because she knew now, without doubt, that she would never stop climbing.