I’m Desaha Tobil and I have a very shrill voice, sweet to those that love me, too piercing to those that are yet to like me and to those that might never like me, a very disturbing voice.
This led to an episode in level 300 which will forever be my shadow, I think my first encounter was level 200 Economics class, I was asked by the lecturer to give a recap of last week’s lecture and immediately I started speaking into the microphone the whole class erupted into an uproar. Since then, most times became crucial because the least thing my name would be mentioned, either for a presentation or to read a note in class.
For some reason, it started getting into my head that I might be the best voice that my class ever got, the next time you start to have such thoughts you should revalue your life because that might be your flight to a great fall. So it was eleven forty and we were waiting for Seidu Baba to come take us through a taxation class. My three friends and I were always punctual and always had the front seats mostly to ourselves.
Mr. Seidu finally came an hour later, ordered us to take our taxation handout and flip it to a particular page, I think we were treating how to tax companies, Winifred was sitting in front and was told to read the first question, she read to a certain word and instead of saying mortgage she said mor-ti-gage and the unserious students that we all are started laughing including me, if only I knew what was coming my way. We solved that question and moving on the lecturer ask ‘Who would read the next question’, the guys sitting at the back started calling out my name and the lecturer asked who Desaha was, most times the lecturers don’t get the name right the first time. Is a story to be told another time.
So let me give you a gist of how the question was;
Ahmed and Sule are in a partnership and below is an extract from their financial statement
31/12/06 Office Furniture ₡300
31/12/07 Refrigerator ₡1000
31/12/08 Motor Vehicle ₡2500
31/12/09 Depreciation ₡500
So the lady that I am, I cleared my throat at the background for the sweet melodies it was about to produce and thought to myself, Winifred, this is how reading is supposed to be done. I took hold of the microphone and started my doom
“Ahmed and Sule are in a partnership and below is the extract from their financial statement”,
“31st December July, Office furniture, 300 hundred cedis”
“31st December August, refrigerator, 1000 cedis”
The guys were at their uproar again and I thought to myself, Desaha you are doing a great job; they can’t take it, see how excited they are. So I went;
“31st December September, motor vehicle, 2500 cedis”
“31st December October, Depreciation, 500 cedis”
By this time the guys were just cheering loudly and I thought this is a little too much, I turned my back and saw some of the ladies laughing so I was wondering if the lecturer had done something funny, I turned to look at him, didn’t want to be the last person to catch the joke, it was then that a colleague prompted my attention to what I read.
Jeez, my palm started sweating as if that wasn’t enough; I turned my face to the class and then said,
“O my God, I have made a mistake, I will take it again”, the cheers became even louder, just when I was about to correct my mistakes the lecturer came for his microphone and said, “This isn’t TV3 for you to be doing such stuff here”. Everyone was enjoying the class except for me, you know that kind of situation where you smile for a second and your face can’t seem to adjust to that smile because it is just up for a show, it was more like Calybos kind of smile and frown situation.
Well, I just ate my humble pie and got more calls from my course mate than I had ever had, apparently, I had activated their teasing mood. I started reading more carefully since because too much confidence could kill. That is how I ended up with the name Miss October-July, but my name still remains Desaha to those who don’t know the story yet. Cheers.
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