Things at school eventually got better when I reached grade seven. My teacher treated me like a human being and made me laugh. Once in a while he made jokes that made me feel more comfortable about being at school. I started to enjoy being at school and before I knew it, it was final national exam time. On the day I collected my results, I saw that the clique of guys who did better academically than I did. They were worried because I had received three units for English and three units for Maths. The best results would have been 1 unit and the worst was 9 units per subject. Most people expected me to get 9 in each subject because of my previous record in school.

I was accepted to Morgan High School. It was just a stone’s throw away from the CBD of the nation’s capital, Harare. It was a new experience for me. The school was much bigger with bigger buildings, a library, much better sporting facilities; it was a multiracial school. It was situated in the coloured community of Acadia. I took this opportunity to make new friends from other areas of Harare my marks started to improve drastically as well.

I excelled in Commerce among other subjects, a subject where we learned about basic business studies. I received a recommendation from my teacher on a regular basis (whose name was also Nicky). It made me feel special and there was something I was good at academically for a change. I was the youngest boy in my class, a class of about 28 learners, but that didn’t deter me at all. I learned a lot during my high school days both in school through the education system and outside.

Morgan High was situated in a fairly violent neighbourhood where occasional fights would occur. I rarely crossed anyone’s path and if I did, my strategy was to run. I would have not stood a chance in a fight. There was this one time, when older boys in form 3 wanted to bully me on my way home. A girl who lived in my neighbourhood came to my rescue. I didn’t mind because I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself. I then became friends with a guy named Thabile whom we called Thabs. Thabs was in my class and was just a little taller than me.

Thabs introduced me to basketball as my favourite sport, cricket, wasn’t available at the school. However, Morgan High had dominance and bragging rights when it came to basketball. The school had some of the best basketball players in the province if not the country. We won most of our matches, unless our rivals, Prince Edward Academy, snatched some of our best players to join their team.

Thabile encouraged me to press on even though this basketball was meant for tall people. He was inspired by Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, who was an American basketball player in the NBA in the 90s. I played for the under 14 team even though I was 15-years-old. No one noticed when we went to play against other schools. I became tired of playing basketball and thought about trying rugby. My highest achievement in rugby was playing hooker for the third team.

I followed Nas Botha who played rugby for the Springboks’s game closely. Then I reached form three and met boys who introduced me to bunking school. During break time we crawled through the drain pipes and left school without having to climb over the fence. We would go to nearby shops and use our pocket money to buy alcohol. I then slowly started losing interest in participating in any sports and became a regular face in detention class.

I was no longer serious about my academic work. For my ‘O’ Levels, which were marked at the Cambridge University those days, I managed to scrap my way through with three Cs in Commerce, Geography and Woodwork. I got two Ds in English and Physical Science and two Ds in Maths and History. All those marks combined were still not enough to get me anywhere. At that time I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a career or with my life yet.

I went back to school the following year and redid the subjects I didn’t do so well in. I had passed three subjects out of seven the year before. I was more determined the second time around because I attended a local school, which didn’t have as many distractions as Morgan High did. I had to commute daily to and from school. I had to walk over 2 km to and from school. My parents arranged for me to take extra class lessons, which resulted in my passing the remaining two subjects. Now I had passed five subjects in the ‘O’ Level, which was the minimum requirement for most entry level jobs and vocational training.

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Tell us what you think: Do you believe that some friends could drag you down if you let them?