I don’t really know if this term “shark all” was used in the elementary school. But with my experience, it is normally used in the secondary schools to mean a brilliant student. You will hear “shark-all”: meaning as for you de3 you can even break marking scheme, lol. The Shark-All Band by extension means a bearer of intelligence.
At Accra Girls’, my secondary school, this term was rather used too much. At times, it sounded abusive kwraa. Just by answering a question correctly in class, shark can be spontaneously added to your academic credentials: eii girls are interesting. But it also felt good to be known as a shark in that school; who doesn’t like an acknowledgement for their academic excellence especially in a category A school?
This draws my mind to a certain strategy the academic heads of my school adopted to make students sit up in their studies. A cute green band was made to be given to students who excelled in their end of term examinations. So just imagine the way you will feel if you were to put on one of these bands. Help me out with this. What suitable name would you have given to these bands? Definitely they had to be called “shark-all” bands, because they are made for the “sharks”. One funny thing I realised was that some of the girls who had the privilege to put on these bands rather hide them. I can’t tell if they were afraid to be bewitched or something. Let’s leave that strange reason for another day.
There is this saying that “one man’s meat is another’s poison”. Since those who deserved the band decided to hide it, the smart ones took advantage of the situation. Whenever a chance came for an outing program, you would see some wannabe sharks wearing the shark-all band (omudi kor flexi, lol) to tell their “butterflies” in the boys’ schools that they excelled in their exams. But apuuu, nothing give them.
I never heard but it would have been nice if one of them was exposed for borrowing a shark-all band to come show off. But thank God the gossips didn’t consider that, hehehe. I have a nostalgic feeling whenever the issue of the bands comes to mind.
A proud Agosa and a “shark-all”. I’m out!
A Ghanaian Story By: Aba Oduma Asiedu
