Living The Dream

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I was obsessed. God, I used to be so obsessed with scholarships it wasn't even funny anymore. My friends had stopped listening to me when I brought it up, which was always. Their eyes would glaze over and they'd come up with excuses to leave when I started talking about application deadlines or requirements. But I couldn't stop. The idea of paying for school with my brain? it sounded like the most beautiful thing on the planet.

Maybe it started with Nafisat when she was in senior secondary school. She nailed that biology test and boom, senior secondary full scholarship. Like that. Her brain, her ticket. I'd see her every now and then during recess, knowing she'd never have to balance school fees like the rest of us. There was a lightness about her, like she was shouldering one less weight on her back.

Or maybe it was discovering about those kids from my junior secondary who mysteriously traveled overseas. Scholarship kids. Living proof it was possible, even here, even to us. Even though most adults would just laugh when you mentioned it. "Government promises," they'd say, with a wave of their hands. "You know how these things are."

But I knew that it was real because I'd witnessed it before.

The phone thing nearly killed me. No phone until after high school; family rule. So although opportunities were probably flying past me daily, I was getting to hear from teachers who'd nonchalantly comment, "Oh, that scholarship? They made the decision last week. I didn't remind you." I wanted to yell. I think I actually yelled a time or two, alone in my room.

The first thing I did when I finally got that phone, easy thing, nothing fancy, was just enter "ongoing undergraduate scholarships." Every single day. Sometimes twice. I had no idea about creating alerts or any of those fancy shortcuts. Just me, YouTube videos, and this very desperate hope that something would stick.

My friends thought that I was losing my mind. "You're missing out on everything," they'd say. "This is university, man. Live a little." But they didn't understand. How could they? They might try to listen, but they were not invested in getting an equal level of commitment to understand why it was such an important problem for me.

I must have filled out at least twenty applications or so and succeeded at none of them. Some asked for forms that I couldn't get. Others charged application fees that were more than my monthly allowance. The cruel irony of paying money to ask for money. I'd complete forms for hours to discover at the end that I didn't meet the requirements. International students only. US residents only. Must have completed two years' study. Must have this certificate, this letter of recommendation, this never-before-heard-of impossibility.

And then came Full Sail University.

I viewed it in some guy's YouTube video. I suppose one of those "Top 10 Scholarships You Don't Know About" ones. The campus was straight out of a movie. Beautiful buildings, people dressed in fancy gear, everything so spotless and shiny and within reach. The YouTuber was repeating "full scholarship" like it was a spell.

I threw everything I could at that test. Days and days of practice tests in maths, computer science basics, general knowledge on technology-type things. They let you do a revision before each section, so I would practice for hours, take the test, study some more, do another.

"We are pleased to inform you..."

I swear I floated. Actually lifted off the ground for a solid three seconds. A scholarship offer to attend from an American university. Me?? I was already picturing myself walking on that campus, backpack loaded with expensive books I didn't have to worry about paying for, talking to professors about computer science like I belonged.

(Screenshot from my phone)

Then I saw the word "conditional."

Conditional. Such a small word to bear such weight.

The requirement for the income statement came at me like a slap of cold water. Why would they care about income if they were covering all their bases? Full was full, wasn't it? I sat there, staring at that message for likely an hour, reading one and the same paragraph repeatedly, in the hopes that the words would somehow change into something else.

I said nothing to anyone. Not yet. Perhaps there had been some error. Perhaps the interview itself would sort everything out.

The call came in precisely at the time they claimed it would. This is an overseas number illuminating my simple phone as if it was getting a message from outer space. My hands were basically trembling when I answered.

"Hello, am I speaking with Mr. Haruna?"

The accent threw me totally. I watch American movies all the time, no problem. But this was different, real talking, real time, no subtitles to fall back on. I was constantly asking her "Sorry?" every few sentences, that awkward pause while my brain fought to catch up with the way she spoke. She was remarkably forbearing, even laughed along when I did, which made it half worse and half better simultaneously.

When I at last mustered up the courage to ask about the income statement, about the scholarship that I thought I was getting, her explanation hit me between the eyes with the accent: "Oh no, honey. Our most generous financial aid covers about half the cost of tuition. You'd pay the other forty-eight thousand."

Forty-eight thousand dollars.

I worked it out in my head naturally. Millions of naira back then. My dad's whole salary for... I couldn't even work that out that much. It might as well have been a billion.

The call went by smoothly. She wished me luck with my other applications, asked me to keep in touch. I just sat there holding the phone for I don't know how long staring at the wall where I had imagined putting my future diploma.

When I told it to my dad later on, he did the parent thing: found all possible silver linings, spun it as a victory somehow. "You got accepted into an American university!" he continued repeating. "That's fantastic!" And maybe he was right. For those moments at least, I was really living the dream. The impossibility of the dream didn't diminish those moments.

I didn't give up, naturally. Giving up is something that's just not in my lexicon, especially when I'm obsessed with something.

Second year, and there were more chances. Four applications this year, and I knew better about it. Three required exams, one was merit (with the provision that you're not enrolled in any other scholarships). Two of the exam-based ones I passed, never heard from the third. The merit-based one actually started requesting documents before I had to drop out because of the scholarship I eventually won.

(Screenshots from my phone)

Three hundred and fifty thousand naira a year. Enough to cover all of my university years and some. Not the American dream I had been seeking, but cash, relief, burden removed from the shoulders of my family.

Occasionally I catch myself wondering what would have happened had I gotten to that college in Florida. Would I have liked it? Would I have been accepted? Such questions seem silly now, but they do occasionally surface.

There are dreams you keep forever, even after they've turned into something else entirely.

Even after you realize you're already living a version of them you never thought to imagine.