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Edith
The
morning sun shone against the pink curtain painting the room a warm rosy hue.
Miriam cast two sleepy eyes upon her messy room.
Miriam's room.
It had been a hectic week.
Miriam and her roommate hadn’t stopped to clean at all. Her gaze moved to the
other bed where Dana, her roommate was sleeping, her mouth comically agape.
They always agreed on going for breakfast the night before but would ultimately
end up sleeping in every time because they both would be glued to their phones
till late. One thing they had in common was having terrible sleep schedules.
Reaching under her pillow she produced her phone and checked the time, it was a
quarter past nine. By this time the mess would be closed. All the light blue
table tops wiped and green plastic chairs neatly pushed back into their places.
In the dormitory the girls would have begun doing their assigned cleaning
duties. Miriam loathed to leave her bed. She considered sleeping in but felt
guilty as she’d done so for the past two Saturdays and hadn’t helped the other
girls clean. She regretted staying up late the previous night as she
laboriously forced herself out of her bed to stretch. The sound of her feet tapping
against the hardwood floor made Dana shift in her sleep. Briefly checking her
appearance in the mirror, a fair skinned girl with thick dark braids gazed back
at her. Her dark eye bags prominent against her pasty complexion.
She
almost bumped into Mag who was mopping by her door. Miriam’s petit figure made
her look like a child beside Mag who stood at five foot four. She murmured a
sheepish apology and tiptoed towards the bathroom. Her room and two others were
assigned to cleaning the showers. Miriam was the youngest child, she grew up in
a good home, all her needs and wants were provided. She was rarely ever made to
work. Having to clean the shower room made her skin crawl. She tentatively
wiped the sink one after the other, her mind conjuring up images of all the
bacteria that she was potentially coming in contact with. Miriam was a freshman
in Divine Word University studying Papua New Guinea and International Studies. 
Divine Word University, Madang
Despite being lazy and spoilt she was somewhat of an Einstein in her class. It
was August now, seven months since she left Hagen. She missed the weather and
the food, most of all she missed her mother. At nineteen and being the youngest
child, this was the longest she’d been away from home. She also missed her high
school friends, she barely spoke to them these days. Miriam had a small circle.
Her shy nature did not allow her to socialize well enough to have a crowd of
girlfriends. She mostly kept her eyes down and spoke when spoken to.
Sinking
deeper into her reverie she thought about how she didn’t intend to come to
Madang. She wanted to study Political Science in the University of Papua New
Guinea in Port Moresby. Since it initially operated as a high school in the
1960’s the DWU campus was relatively small. She found this convenient but
sometimes dull as the other universities she’d visited had a variety of places
to explore. She and her friends would go for “revs”, DWU slang for walking
around their campus or hang out at Alumnae Park or Kibung Peles when they were
free. But that wasn’t the worst thing about Divine Word, the worst thing was
the bats. They hung from trees during the day and pooped on unsuspecting
students, it was awful. Miriam had her fair share of stories about these
unfortunate incidents as any other Madang DWU students.
Deeply
engrossed in her work, she hadn’t notice a frog sticking to the grimy shower
curtain. It lunged at her face when she pulled back the curtain. Miriam let out
a howling shriek profusely wiping her face before tearing out of the room. She
was absolutely repulsed. She couldn’t bare going back to finish cleaning.
Surely the others wouldn’t mind picking up where she left off.
The
corridor was redolent of purple softener. Music was pouring out from two
different rooms, one must have been heartbroken and the other was playing
Tonton Malele’s latest hit. Gen and Eva were dancing to the latest Tiktok trend
on one side of the common room and on the other side several girls were getting
their hair done. In her room, Dana was at her dresser studying herself in the
mirror, “I’m breaking out.” she groaned. By now Miriam was so hungry her
stomach was practically screaming for food. “That’s too bad you and that cute
journalism student would have made a cute couple” Miriam playfully teased.
Checking her food container, she came upon a pitiful sight, she found a single
tea bag, an almost empty peanut butter jar and an opened packet of biscuits that
were beginning to mold. She threw out the biscuit and sat at her own dresser
contemplating what to do to kill time till lunch. Her eyes rested upon her
laundry basket peaking at her from under her bed. She hadn’t done her laundry
in two weeks. Letting out a long sigh she pulled the heavy basket from under
the bed.
Just
as her hand rested on the silver door knob she heard the booming voice of
Sister Margot, their dean coming from the corridor. No wonder the music had
stopped playing. Sister Margot was a nun but her heart was made of stone.
“Mariah Helena ladies, the sight of your toilet is an atrocity and your shower
room has been left half cleaned!”. Everyone was taking refuge in their rooms.
“Dorm captain weh?” she called. Meghan went out to face her. “Mi warnim yupela
last month yet, if yu don’t keep this dormitory klin em bai yupla go long Edith.
Dispela em niupela dormitory!” she yelled, her thick Bogia accent audible
through her fury. “So tonight, I want you all to pack your belongings everyone
should be settled into Edith this time tomorrow” she called loud enough for all
of us to hear before leaving. One by one the girls began coming out of their
rooms. “Well you guys heard her” said Meghan. “This is why I kept asking you to
cooperate and work together to keep the dorm clean”. In a resigned voice she
told the girls to just pack their things. Miriam felt guilty. She couldn’t help
but blame herself, if only she hadn’t been so lazy she thought ruefully as she
sat on her bed, the realization setting in.
