The Angry Teacher

She was a nightmare. I do not know why, exactly, but she used to send shivers down my young spine. We were in class two. And every morning we secretly prayed she never showed up to teach. And of course, our relationship with god was at its infancy, therefore unanswered.

Every morning, whispers ‘she’s coming’ would rent the classroom and we’d all peep through the window to confirm. I guess seeing is believing. Mrs. Chirchir would be ambling across the field in pace that made us extra tense as we tried to welcome the impending doom.

The mere act of crossing the field taught us two things: that whatever is abominable for us was perfectly acceptable for adults. Taking a detour across the field was akin to insulting the king. I guess it was an early lesson, which we did not get, that adults can do whatever they want.  

I didn’t like Mrs. Chirchir at all. She had two children, a boy and a girl. They were two really annoying children. I think they intentionally chokozad others and if you lay a finger on them or even act like it, you’d encounter the rath of their mother. We kept our distance, leaving the kids to annoy themselves. And they often fought, with the boy, being younger, was more ferocious than an accosted lion.

Mrs. Chirchir did not do me anything to me of note. Except I lived in mortal fear of her. One day, she came to class surreptitiously and found me talking with my desk mate Edu. We were doing our assignments and Edu was apparently copying from me and I was letting him know about it.

“Ati unanionea hii!!” I said within Mrs. Chhirchir’s earshot.

“Kumbe unaongeanga ivo?” She asked. At the time, I knew hell had broken loose. I knew I would be turned into mince meat. But she didn’t. she let it slide but that simple act did not make me like her at all.

Fridays were hellish days for us. This was the day we’d be asked to fetch fresh cow dung from a neighbor to improve the aesthetics of our classroom floor. It wasn’t’ cemented. It was hellish for us boys because it was an indignifying chore. It was emasculating and the woman in Mrs. Chirchir used that opportunity to diminish our manhood – it wasn’t that advanced but it was manhood nevertheless.

No Future

When you think really deeply, there is nothing like future. Of course, if you discount Future Fambo, and Future the rapper. But today, I am incapable of thinking really deeply. I’ll offer a superficial analysis of my hypothesis on why there is nothing like future.

It dawned on me, and I am quite astounded, that I am really old. Somewhere along the highway of sweet twenties, I got waylaid by some aliens who convinced me that growing up stopped at 20+x years. It could be a nice way to live if you had oil wells pumping under your armpits. The stench would be bearable to the fairer gender.

20+x years imprints a fatalistic here-and-now mentality. At this age, the future does not exist. There is nothing like a month from now. A year from now? We’ll be probably dead after consuming mercury-laced sugar if not OD.

After Y years have elapsed, the bubble might burst suddenly or gradually. It can be sudden when you go back to the village and that small boy who used to ask you stupid questions as young children are wont, is married with two children. And the wife is probably hot, too, if round off motherhood to the nearest 18 years.

And the little champ has built a house!! It might not be that grand per say, but it is his house. He can wake up and demolish it and no one would give him shit. We would think he is mad though even if it is his own house, built with his own money. And he probably has an old rickety motorbike that would give you tetanus or marasmus – whichever comes first. But damn it! It’s his motorbike, bought with is own sweat and blood.

And then there is you, stuck at 20+x years with a bunch of diplomas and degrees, and a whacky philosophy about life and everything that makes it throb. Whacky here means contrary to popular belief, that is, politics, social, and financial. And religion.

Back to future. It only exists because you decide not to live now. For instance, you could make a little money and decide to postpone spending it now. You willfully deny yourself pleasure to spend it at a later now, which if think closely, will still be now. You will never be alive in a future, you are only alive now, at this present, and one breath, one heartbeat, and one second at a time.

But then if you think like this, you will stagnate and turn murky and greenish like stagnant water.

Odd Humans

It’s approaching seven in the evening. You are taking a walk to clear your head. You could use some form of unfamiliarity. You take an unfamiliar street. Amid the hustle and bustle, it is difficult to mind your own business. Children shriek and hurl vulgar (adult-rated) insults at one another. You mutter watoto wa siukuizi under your breath, because you are now too old.

Then you spot an oddity, a peculiar sight. You know what that sight means – it means the grim reaper visited a family. How do you know it? The bereaved family takes out a speaker, plays some sombre gospel songs, and places the picture of the deceased close by. The family wants you to know that death has visited them, and that they may (or may not, that’s the way things are done) need some financial assistance.

As you walk by, you look at the deceased’s picture and the family that has gathered around. Your only concern is how the deceased met his death. Was it a long illness bravely born? Was it an accident? Was it thugs? Did he die suddenly? Then you begin thinking about your own mortality.

But one of the deceased family members confronts you. She forcefully wants you to be empathetic and respond in kind by parting with your hard-earned cash. It is nauseating, that level of entitlement. You ignore her and walk on. She is not done with you and shouts:

“Ata wewe utakufa!!!” where did that come from? Really? Was it even necessary? She says it as though she is never used to being rejected or ignored. Or she had signed a pact with God that whoever she talks to parts with something. The nerve!! Benevolence is not compulsory.

In anger at her statement, you respond in kind ‘pia wewe utakufa!’She adds more insults that put to question whether she was actually bereaved or not. You walk on.

 

The Real Church

 It has been a sacred ambition of mine to start a church. The thought that I wouldn't find irrevocably gullible and easy-to-convince followers has held me back.

In light of the recent events - Shakahola and what not - I think I might have been held back by something miniscule. Small. Minute.

The truth is, I do not want go to heaven. I would find it hard to convince people to go to a place I have no intention of going.

And this begs the question: how do you believe someone who tells you to starve so that you can go to heaven yet they themselves partake 7 meals a single day?

Well, for me, even when I have taken six cups of keg, I will ask the simple question;

"Sir, with all due respect, I'd like you to starve here with me."

Same with that religion that encourages people to blow themselves into a million tiny pieces for them to acquire 70 virgins. I'd say, respectfully:

"Sir, I'd like my virgins brought to me before I exit this world."

Or,

"Sir, if these virgins truly exist in the next world, what the hell are you still doing here? Show some leadership and go first."

Even if heaven is such a beautiful place, I wouldn't want to suffer to go get there. I do not think Jesus wanted it that way.

My church would solely be based on making the here-and-now a kind of heaven. Your dead self will deal with what will happen when the time comes.

I would focus on ensuring that my followers live happy lives, can easily fulfill their needs (food, shelter, clothing, na wapige sherehe kila siku if possible) and be kind to one another.

The motto of my church would be "Be wary of the overly religious, there are more skeletons on their closets than will ever be exhumed in Shakahola."

An Ode To Ugali

I love ugali. Admittedly, I was 'forced' to love it, more like an arranged marriage, except the absence of options. An arranged marriage is worse when there are options. When there aren't, you will grudgingly learn to love whoever was chosen for you, because - get ready for the groundbreaking revelation - you have no OPTION. In a nutshell, that's how I began a lifelong affair with ugali.

We ate ugali for breakfast, ate it for lunch, and ate it for supper. It wasn't a big deal. We did not know that something else existed apart from ugali or its related variations such as porridge and mkarango. If it was possible, we'd eat ugali accompanied by ugali.

I learnt the other day why it was impossible. I haven't looked at it the same again. A few foreigners were asked to rate ugali and they came with one unanimous conclusion - it is very TASTELESS. I have interacted with ugali all my life and I had never thought of it as tasteless.

It forced me to reminisce my primary school days. For those who went to boarding school, I know they understand the kind of torture we went through. Most of it revolved around food. Our experience (or at the very least most of us) at the fabled KHA were tough. I can legitimately blame it in all my addictions.

Nothing ever came close to the trauma we experienced in boarding. We were fed with just enough food to keep us alive and endure a few strokes of cane from time to time, especially for people like me whose IQs then competed favourably with donkey hooves.

I remember how I'd wait anxiously for the bell to ring for meals. Immediately after meals, I'd begin the anxious wait for the next meal. If anything KHA's food did not fill up your stomach. It made you hungrier.

It turns out that the go-to meal was ugali. The sight of large ugali was probably arousing at the time. We had developed a secret and strict code of eating it. We'd begin with veges using the scorched earth policy. You'd never see a trace of anything remotely related to the badly cooked cabbages or sukuma wiki.

I remember one female teacher chanced upon this sinister ugali-eating protocol. She pitied one boy who got a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have his plate replenished with the badly cooked mbogas which was a delicacy by the way. It had to be - we had no choice.

However, when the female teacher looked around, she realised that all boys did not have vegetables on their plate. She might have thought there was an anomaly somewhere or the cooks deliberately denied boys veges. We must have laughed because she did not know out secret code.

At the time, ugali was not tasteless. We loved it the way it was. As far as we were concerned, ugali was blameless and upright. We even began trading ugali for bread. It was simple, you gave another person ugali and the other person would repay you with bread.

I loved ugali so much that I often traded it for my bread. The bread wasn't that big either. It was an eighth. But both commodities had equal value. Half for half, full for full. When I talk about equal value, I do not mean the entire loaf, but just the eighth.

Since I wasn't big on bread, my memories are slightly skewed towards ugali. There was something controversial about those who loved bread during our time at KHA.

Now, it has been revealed that ugali is tasteless. One person even likened to wet cement. However, it won't break our tight relationship, which is strengthened more by KHA memories.

Although I do not look at ugali the same way, the love for it will forever remain

  

I'll Still Be Me

Do you know how much I have tried 
to 'unme' myself? 

I have always felt, without proof, 

that there was another version of myself, 

an improved version, 

a person so completely different from me 

a successful person, 

But it turns out that person shies away 

from the limelight 

Afraid to step out and be counted among 

heroes 

in all the futility of being me, 

I have given up finding my other self

I am 'me' and I'll still be me 

I Am Not Sane

I guess you are wondering 
whether the thoughts, 
that glide and dance in my head, 
are the thoughts of a sane man. 

I harbour the same thoughts too, 
the kind of thoughts that graze 
inside this head - a head that's cost 
you a fortune - 
because they are no thoughts of a 
completely sane man 

I must admit, staying sane 
is a toll task on my part 
I am constantly seeking tunes 
bordering on dirges and love songs 
because it is then that the dinghy 
halls in my mind come alive 

The Transparent Lady

“What if…what if you get a woman,” he began drawing my teenage attention, prying me away from my own thoughts, which were too important to be disturbed but had to act like I was listening; he had my partial attention. “And when she undresses you find that she is transparent, that you can see her innards, her heart beating, and her intestines?”

Pissed off by the rude intrusion into the castles that I was building in the air, and the need to show him that I was a good listener, I feigned surprise, dropping my jaw and hang there like we were up and about a mannequin challenge. It was back in high school, a long time ago. And the dude asking me about encountering a transparent woman was my desk mate, the time was evening during a biology remedial class. A lot of guys were already asleep and a few of us pretended to be listening how roots absorbed water into its system, from a short slightly built brown teacher with a funnily rounded forehead. He had a nickname, of course all of them had nicknames. His wasn’t particularly striking, perhaps because of his ability to mind his own business and perhaps because he had a deep Kalenjin accent.

There were those teachers who never minded their own business. There was one in particular christened Jembe. When we joined form one he had that name, apparently because he had a knack for giving out punishments that involved the esteemed garden tool, that has sadly been defiled by overly generous ladies. He had it. We called him by such without questioning circumstances that led to him acquiring that name. For some strange reasons Jembe never seemed to have gotten over that name and sought revenge whenever possible. He was permanently on duty, going round every morning, fishing people who skipped preps.

Jembe had a son and a daughter, and a wife. Thinking about it now, I wonder how a grown ass man would forgo the comfort of his wives ample bossom (his wife was blessed in all aspects) to go round waking up people who never gave a shit about their futures, at least when it came to studying and passing. Who knows, they could have pulled a Joho stunt by now. As sanity allowed we did all we could to avoid the son, who was about twelve at the time, with lanky feet, thin like preying mantis’. It seemed like his dad had pulled him aside and imparted the following wise words.

“Son, should anyone look at you in a manner that suggests a jembe, screen shot that face and bring to me,” and the son of Jembe heeded that advice.

Back to our biology teacher, with his funny forehead. His only interest apart from class room business was his paycheck and probably his daughter who had the same exact forehead. Dominant genes, we joked. It happened that he had spotted my desk mate whispering to me about the transparent woman and watched me dropping my jaws and remaining ‘statued’, judged it as the sincerest form of disrespect, for the next thing the class heard was:

“Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Toka!!!!  Ketaut!! You two!” the rest of the class, which was asleep, rose from their slumbers thinking the words were directed at them. And so we rose without closing our books, opened the door and stepped out.

As fate would have it, we later learnt that the cool Kerio Valley breeze wouldn’t be the only thing that would welcome us. Teacher on duty. He wasn’t worse than Jembe but he never listened to any form of reasoning. He seemed to have decided early on that if you give a student a chance, he will concoct the most believable lie ever-never trust a student knee deep in shit. A few seconds into our night out, he passed by, heading into his office. He saw us and quickly summoned us into his office. Once inside he began an interrogation without any interest in the answers we were going to give.

“What are you doing outside?” he had asked as he went about sorting papers on top of his table.

“We were talking in class and the teacher asked us to step out,” my desk mate volunteered.

“What were you talking about?”

Silence. I almost told him about the transparent woman.

“You were gossiping about the teacher’s open fly, isn’t it?”

“No, sir!” we cried out in unison.

“No, no…face the wall,” he ordered us as he took out a cane and gave us an ass whopping. Four strokes each. He then asked us to report to him on Monday. I remember now that it had been a Friday. Friday were good days for various reasons. One, Fridays are always good for no reason at all, two is we never had to wake up for preps the next day, which means Jembe wouldn’t be disturbing us, three (most importantly) was it was the last day of eating murram that week.

Before he could let us go, he remembered about a school trip scheduled for the Form 3s that term. We hadn’t paid, having spent all of the money on the most trivial things one could thing of; bread, kangumu etc. he quickly took out a foolscap, wrote our names and asked us to prepare sufficient reasons as to why we hadn’t paid for the trip. As far as we were concerned, the trip would be a ‘ghost one’ a mere figment of one’s imagination. I swear some had even told their parents about going to Mombasa but wouldn’t account for the money given to them. And you want to blame the government for runaway corruption?

As if he had sensed that were already in deep shit, Funny Forehead let us off the hook. It’s as if he had a premonition that the teacher on duty would ‘sort’ us out, thus absolving himself from the need to bother his forehead with a worthy punishment for two errant boys. He exhorted us to be attentive in class as he slotted a piece of chalk between an old note book that would as well have been used to teach Joho’s generation. It was old and crumpled by the edges. If it would have been carbon dated Kenyan style it would have been discovered that Zinjanthropus used it.

As he walked away, we resumed the formulation of the most formidable lies that would explain or justify why the canteen man had taken our trip money. Even though it seemed probable that we would find a transparent woman than a believable reason, I can safely tell you that we went for the trip. Up to now I can’t tell how we got the money, for first thing the following Monday morning we were at his office immediately after assembly, with crumpled notes (currency) a little dump with sweat as we held up our breathes not to be mentioned in assembly. 

A Mirthless Life

      Life sometimes makes me burst into a long mirthless laugh. I might look like a replica of a weirdo but am too real, though I have won a fair share of accolades that only a sane man can proudly lay claim to. All along my life I have cultivated a penchant for criticizing almost everything that has been conceived under the able hands of the Lord. Plenty of times I have thought I was too good to live for everything seemed wrong; everything my eyes fell on had that unpleasant look embedded unto it, everything I heard sounded like an alien language to me. I trudged on with life, with the burden wearing me heavily.

      The challenge bestowed to me, as my innocence slowly waned, owing to schooling, was one to be of use to the society. Nothing alluded to my own, and there was never even an attempt by anyone to explain why it was the way it was. I would rise daily to the beckon of the birds morning merry, oblivious of the destination education would take me. At times I would grudgingly oblige, often after a few strokes of cane from my mother. Sulking and throwing useless tantrums I would go to school, perceiving it as a punishment. I remember the day I was bought the uniform−a pair sky blue shorts, a blue shirt and a maroon pullover. I sighed, not for anything better but one that spoke of an ending journey that was about to commence I remember thinking I was done. I remember my little sister crying also wanting to join me in the process but calmed down when she heard that people were being beaten by teachers.

     Going to school never at any single moment made sense to me. It was a way of robbing me a chance to play all day while herding the family’s sheep. The only option lay in sitting still as a teacher drove away my ignorance (including my classmates’). We shouted ourselves hoarse, our voices never exceeding the walls of our classrooms, a mud walled structure. At noon I would make our way home and tell with bovine innocence of my day, making an off key rendition of the songs of alphabet much to the delight of my mother. It made me happy and longed for another day to display what I had learned. And the cycle was the same each day.

    Years went by. It was too quick for me to notice. Several Christmases passed calmly like water under a bridge.  Sooner than I thought I had cleared primary school, albeit after changing schools. Discarding an old uniform for a new one is what I dread the most to date. Its smell nauseates me. It kills the purpose of reason. The branding, often with an acronym of my name, because it can be stolen. I never understood why someone would forcefully lay claim to a clothe that doesn't belong to him, worse still when everybody has two pairs as was declared in the admission form. Nevertheless life went on, weeks seamlessly fitting into months, months paved way for years and my knowledge paved way for a cynic and nihilistic attitude.

    The purpose of life crumbled upon the feet of examination. I bore the brunt of a father’s anger and dejection that spoke of a hidden frustration, often twined in motivational talk. I would pretend to pay attention and quickly discard the advice. Reading for exams really made life a hell−and it still does−and it was even more stressful on the day it was to be released. For all the stages of learning I emerged on top of my fears, passing well enough to be regarded as a having fruitfully went to school. Passing is an humbling experience, just ask one who failed.

    All the knowledge failed to instill the courage to confront life like everybody did. I was overcome by my own conscience, intertwined with pride and a philosophical mind. The bible was eroded of its reverence, I questioned its authenticity. The sacred pages were nothing more than antique poems. Nihilism started here. And to this day little has changed though I long it would. Those Sundays were horrible. Being forced to go to church wasn't a thing to smile about. It was akin to being caged in a stingy cell without the consent of will. They said it was a rule to be in church but it was an harsh one to me.

After high school, life assumed a nonchalant mode, though in the dark it was marked by anxiety. I never wanted to imagine how did my exams and just waited for that moment when I would be proclaimed an intelligent idiot or vice versa−I wouldn't any where far from this two. All the idling bore boredom. I had no friends. I was my own friend and I let myself down so many times. Writing something in the stillness of the night, only to tear the paper a few days later. I hated myself like no one would. I was my own virtual enemy.

      During the moments of hating, that then I formed the perception that life was worth a pence. My father and mother had made the greatest mistake  falling in love. My angst was visible in the posts that graced my social media account. Reduced to nothingness I found little that tickled my amusement. Everything assumed an invisible pose or I had gone blind. Either way I was withdrawn and kept everything to myself.