The Resist

I wore a broad smile as I ripped open that brown A5 envelope; careful not to tear anything inside, desirous to read the contents therein. 

It had been a long wait to finally know the school I would be joining for my high school education. St. Cyprian Boys High School read the bold address on the top right corner of the letter. 

I did not read further, the address was just enough. I was disheartened beyond words. I had not chosen that school in the first place for two simple reasons.

 

One, the school was only separated by a small road from my primary school. Occasionally when you hit the ball hard it found its way into St. Cyprian compound. Joining the school would simply be like finishing class eight and joining class nine in the same school. I felt that I needed to go far from the village, I had good marks to earn me a place in a different provincial school. There is no way I was joining this village school, provincial or no provincial, Period! 

Two, besides this school being in the village, the tales we heard about it were terrifying. St. Cyprian Boys is the former St. Kizito where 19 girls were brutally killed by their fellow male students in July 1991 (May their gentle souls R.I.P). Stories went round that at night when students visited the washrooms they would witness 19 girls dancing. There was another story about goats having been spotted smoking in the compound at night. These and many other stories made me get so scared of joining the school.

I waited for one more week and I received no other single letter. Mum insisted that I would join the school that my marks had earned me but I protested. By the way about 10 of my classmates had received admission letters to the same school as well. They all had reported except me. I vowed to stay strong and resist.

I refused completely to join school even after mum bought everything that was required and the reporting deadline kept drawing near. 

Dad arrived one day late into the night from his work place. News of me refusing to join school had reached him all the way in Maasai Mara. We all had no idea that he would be coming, we didn’t hear him arrive only to be greeted by his presence when we woke up the following morning. My dad is a man of few words, after breakfast I hurriedly left the sitting room to the kitchen so he would not ask me questions.

About an hour later, he came out, called me and asked me to get prepared immediately and wait for him to return from wherever it is he was going to.  

Me-think he was headed to his workmate’s homes to deliver long letters they had written to their spouses declaring their love to them and their kids. Dad wrote lengthy letters that he too sent his workmates to deliver to mum that she would occasionally request me to read for her. 

I remember his usual opening line, and he wrote in fine Kîmîrû (Kî-tiania), “Mbere buru i nkeethi inyingî muno ya mûthanga ywa îlia kana ya nyonyoni chia îwûrû. Ingwîtîkia bûî babeya na Ngai nabwîkîte bweya. Inyani ndî ûmweya………” I miss this! Next time I am home, am gonna ask mum if she has a copy. I would love to keep one.  

Mobile phones were unheard-of those days save for a red telecom booth that was on Jomugas’ verandah in Mûrîrî. Dad would call sometime and request whoever who answered to come to our home to announce that he would be calling at exactly six in the evening. 

We would all bathe and make our way to Mûrîrî after school and after mum exchanges some pleasantries with her better half, she would then request us to line up and say hi to the king of our little jungle. 

It felt heavenly to talk to dad over the phone. He would ask us what number we were and the present we would like him to buy us. I always said a bike and he would assure me that he would bring me one every time. 

He never said NO. To date I have never received that bike, but that promise and assurity from him kept me working really hard. (Muntû umûtane ateonakia aana baawe kîrina. Atibaîraa nkûûmbwa).

I digress!

I didn’t dare ask a question of where we would be destined to. Your guess is as right as mine. It was evidently clear I was not going to spend one more night in that compound. 

He came back in the afternoon and after lunch they sat me down in the sitting room, him and mum. They lectured me on how to behave in school, working hard and several other topics I can’t remember. The question of me refusing to join school was never brought to the table. I did not utter a single word the entire time the lecture lasted.

Mum escorted us for about 300 M and walked back home. Maybe she thought we would board a Matatu to school. Wapi? I carried the box on my head all the way to school. On arrival we went to this small office that hosted the boarding master Mr. Nyagah. I met some other 2 boys who were also being admitted at that very moment. 

There was no trouser that would fit me due to my small size. Mr. Nyagah allowed me stay in my civilian attire till the end of the week when my size would be delivered. Before he left, Dad handed me a two hundred note and told me to use it wisely – How on earth should one use a two hundred note wisely gang? Anyhu! We shook hands and he left. 

Mr. Nyagah then called a very big bearded boy and requested him to take me to Lenana dormitory and show me where I would be sleeping. He carried my box and I followed him closely carrying a one inch mattress I was issued with to the dormitory. He was my father guide, I later learnt. Sharu was his name, he was a Muslim of Somali origin and in form three. He was kind hearted and he took good care of me. He allowed me put my box next to his, a place that was reserved for only form threes and fours. My box permanently stayed in that very spot for the entire four years I spent in that school.

Form one was really tough for me. The food, githeri, was horrible and smelled of paraffin, always. Waking up for dawn preps was a real bother. The bullying was real. When I saw boys in Alliance talk of bullying on TV the other day I was wondering if they had a clue of what real bullying is. 

We were made to do weird stuff. Imagine someone coming to you with a shoe that smells like he works in a morgue puts it on your mouth and tells you to call your mother or sister. You would use the shoe as a phone. This lasted as long as he wished while you are just there helpless choking of that odour smell and the bully is standing right there laughing like he was doing you good.

Others would give us a one shilling coin send us to the canteen to buy them a loaf of bread and demand that we bring them balance. This was to me total madness and every time these things happened I always thought of running away from that school.

At night after preps when people are settling in their beds, some form twos would request a form one to go switch the lights off. As the lights go off he would be hit by all manner of objects in darkness including shoes and avocado seeds amid shouts of, ‘Unazima lights kwani nyanyako ndiye hukojoa kindaruma!’

I remember this one time when a form four came to my class and called me. “Mono kuja hapa!” His name was Kibaara.

I was barely 2 months into that school. “I need your sport shoes, we have a game in Maua girls, and I will return them in the evening.” It was on a Friday and they were heading for a basketball tournament. I was hesitant, I loved my shoes and I didn’t want them to play. Besides, they were number six and looking at his feet I would tell they would not fit him. “Acha ufala mono! Come uniwahi dula,” He commanded. I had no option I walked to the dormitory and handed him the shoes.

He stayed with those shoes for a cool two weeks. I reported him to Kaume my neighbour at home who was his team mate and doubled as his class mate. Kaume accompanied me to the dormitory he slept and we met him seated on his bed at the corner in Siberia (A separate room in the dormitory where form fours stayed). When we told him that we had come for the shoes, he removed them under his bed and threw them through the window and told me, “Unafikiria nakula viatu mono, enda okota takataka zako huko!” I cried as I walked out to collect them. Those shoes were barely 2 months old and I had put them on less than 5 times but looking at them they seemed like they had seen better days.

I met Kibaara in Otiende – Langata two years ago and he told me that he is now an army officer stationed at Langata barracks. I hope he applies the same zeal and zest he used in bullying us in dealing with al-shabaab millitants.

Then there were teachers, I will tell you about one here;

Mr Kahura Chokera was my Swahili teacher in form one. He was hated and liked in equal measure. I remember his first lesson on pronunciation, the Kaakaa laini, kaakaa ngumu and the likes after which he gave us the first assignment. Woe onto you if your handwriting was ineligible! The slaps that landed on your cheek were so fierce. “Mono! unaandika kana kwamba ulizaliwa usiku wewe! Nina binti mrembo yuko darasa la sita na ana hati nzuri kuipiku yako!” He would tease us. 

I remember one evening after supper our class was supposed to wipe the tables in the dining hall which we didn’t. The D hall captain reported us to Mr Kahura who was the deputy principal and doubled as the discipline master. 

He ordered us to wash the whole D hall as he supervised. After washing, he ordered the class prefect to go fetch the class list.

He then removed his coat and placed it on the table, removed a bunch of keys from his pants' left pocket and his Motorola phone from the right one and placed them on top of his coat that was now lying on the table. He then removed a whip (Nyahunyo) he had put around his waist like a belt and ordered us to step out of the D hall.

The prefect read the first name, and as he made his way in, Kahura grabbed him by his shorts, threw him towards the table where he landed on his stomach and he gave him six of the best on his now almost bare sitting apparatus. We all froze! We peed right outside that D hall. Most of us were in shorts and nothing else. We thought those who were in trousers and had shorts inside were better of only to be told to remove either of the two the moment their turn came. The rest did not wait to be told, boys stripped in front of others to remove the shorts they had inside their trousers to avoid an extra stroke.

Ntoiti was tall and heavy built, when his turn came, Kahura found him unusually heavy to grab and throw on the table like he did the rest of us. “Ulizaliwa mwaka gani wewe?” He asked angrily. By this time he was sweating profusely. You would think he was getting an allowance for thrashing us.

“1988!” Ntoiti answered.

What? This invited more trouble!

“Baba mzima? 1988 wewe unafaa kuwa umepata jiko na una watoto wanne bwana! Unafanya nini kidato cha kwanza wewe?” He retorted.

Ntoiti was beaten the most. The following day he couldn’t walk. The rest of those he later asked their year of birth the answer was 1990 or 91. 

He caned a whole lot of us, a class of 45 students with an exception of only the prefect. Quick maths tells me he gave 264 strokes to the 44 of us plus of course a miscellaneous of about 50 strokes to those who jumped and slithered on the table and the ‘old’ ones like Ntoiti.

I am as certain as day follows the night that his hand was aching the following day, Akiumia! tunaumia!

The following day we didn’t attend any class, we spent the whole day slashing grass in lower Kasarani (That’s what we called our pitch).

That was the first and the last day I got six (sita) of the best in my entire school life.

Mr Kahura remains one of the greatest teachers I have crossed paths with in my schooling. 

One Friday I was so homesick and wanted to go home so badly. I walked into his office about 4 pm in the evening and asked him for permission to go home. I lied that I had a doctor’s appointment the following day and I needed to go home.

He inquired where my home was and when I told him he requested me to go take super which was usually served at six and then go back after I had eaten. I went back to his office around 6.30 sat and waited for him to finish whatever he was doing. 

He grabbed his car keys and told me, “twende bwana!” He gave me a lift in his Peugeot 404 pickup, KUD and dropped me in Muriri at 7pm. No leave-out chit no nothing, he just told me to report to him first thing Monday morning which I did and we became good friends. A gentleman he was.

He sometimes used to walk a distance of about 2 kilometres from St. Angela’s Girls where his family lived at 4 am to come and wake us up for dawn preps. “Amkeni bwana, nimetoka St. Angela’s sasa hivi na nimewaacha mabinti tayari washaamka na nyinyi bado mnang’orota hapa! Nimewapata kuku barabarani pia washaamka wakala na wakashiba! Amkeni bwana! Eeeeeh!” He would shout. You would have seen the speed in which guys got out of their blankets.

Beautiful memories those are.

Disclaimer

I couldn’t have gone to a better school than the mighty Cyprian. The stories that were being told about the school were neither here nor there. The school performed exemplary and had good teachers and students during our time. I know some of you know that for the last few years the school has been performing dismally with last year’s results being the worst. I believe something can and must be done to awaken the sleeping giant. As an alumnus I pledge to join hands with all the stakeholders in finding out what ails my alma mater!   

Long live Cypoh!