Sperosa

If you had the privilege (some may call it a misfortune) of spending your senior high school (SHS) years in a Ghanaian classroom (especially a single sex school), you would be familiar with the school alliance concept. I do not know the history about how such unions began, but I know, ever since I started schooling in a boys’ SHS, that every boys’ school in Ghana is linked to its female counterpart; vice versa is also true.

 Being a senior high school student taught me that Mfantsipim School is associated with Wesley Girls High School, that St Augustine’s College and Holy Child School have a bond, that Opoku Ware SHS and St Louis Girls’ SHS are joined by strong strings and that there is a chemistry that works like magic between St Peter’s Boys SHS (Persco) and St Rose’s Girls’SHS ! Being a student in SHS also taught me that these alliances have names : MOBAGEYHEY, APSUHOPSA, AKATASLOPSA and the famous SPEROSA. Many other alliances exist.

While some of us may look back at our senior high school years and laugh at these unions we once were very proud of, it could be quite shocking to know how real some others were about it. Some BECE candidates actually consider the kind of alliances they would love to join before making their choices in school selection!

St Peter's SHS boulevard

I completed St Peter’s Boys’ SHS in the Eastern Region of the country. My school was affiliated to St Rose’s Girls SHS, and we were proud to refer to them as our ‘girls’ school’. It was same with them. I am sure our alliance was the most popular (and still is) especially because many girls I had known from other schools during my SHS days confessed that our union name ‘Sperosa’ was one of the sweetest names they had ever heard. Now I am sure someone reading this now would want to disagree, but those would be those who never heard the ‘true stories’ as I was told.

St Peter’s rests on the Kwahu plateau, Nkwatia precisely. St Rose’s is also situated at Akwatia. The similarity between the names of the two towns misleads strangers into thinking that the two schools are pretty close. The distance from Nkwatia to Akwatia is not as close as the names are. The kind of roads our girls school plied in order to visit us was one that extended the duration of journeys. Despite this, Sperosa remained as real as air and the sight of the two schools meeting together never ceased to be beheld. Sperosa trips produced sights that were delightful to behold.

I didn’t know much about Sperosa before I got admitted to Persco, but before I left, I was sure whoever established that union must have been a very good planner. There was something exclusive about this alliance that I am sure happens nowhere else. Upon admission, freshers from both schools are given friends in the other, what is known as a ‘Sperosa link’. Some get to meet their Sperosa links during Sperosa or other inter-school programmes. Some get to meet theirs at home. Others only get to meet theirs during the annual final trip for final year catholic students in the Eastern Region—the
Grotto pilgrimage. It is during such events that Sperosa flames burn so bright that boys from Pope John’s start to wish Krobo Girls’ SHS were a catholic school (because that’s the girls’ school they are affiliated with). 

Memories of Sperosa invade my thoughts almost anytime I leave my mind to wander into days spent on the Kwahu plateau— days in St Peter’s. It reverberates memories and creates a mental gallery of nostalgic photos of St Rose’s Choir’s annual visits, the Drama Fest programmes our boys graced, the annual trips to Japan together and the Ghana-Japan Yosakoi  Festivals at East Legon. The Sperosa days during vacations cannot be left out. How could I forget the St Thomas Aquinas day trips made together and how beautiful it was when it fell on Valentine’s Day (as it did this year).

I believe a wireless bond links the Nkwatia Plateau to the Akwatia valley, because almost everything that was of St Peter’s was of St Rose’s, too and no matter how many times that link has been threatened, it is strengthened the more when the two schools meet.

And…lest I forget, I have witnessed Sperosa weddings, too—several of them. You’ll know you’ve attended one when you hear someone respond “In a class of our own” to the shout of “Sperosa!”