“Who lost a ball?” Mr. Wambongo
asked after greetings which often followed an unimpeachable protocol involving
us shooting up and saying ‘welcome to our class.’ Mr. Wambongo had a queer way
about himself. He strolled around the school compound with his hands behind his
back. He would crack a joke or two with you, a joke you never forgot. One such
joke was the reason soldiers are required to to be physically fit. He
demonstrated it using the one metre ruler, where he mimicked a limping soldier
walking in combat with the ruler as a gun. The other joke was how he used to
refer Maji Maji rebellion leader, Kinjeketile Ngwale. He pronounced Kinjeketile
by ‘Englishizing‘ ‘tile’ which sounded as Kinjeketyle. One day he dressed down
Mike for pronouncing it as he often joked about. I remember the stern look on
his face as he said ‘kijana una mzaha.’
What struck me about Mr. Wambongo
was that he was never pretentious. He punished you and you didn’t keep it in
your heart or mind. Almost certainly, you deserved the punishment. But not that
Sunday afternoon, after we had just had a helping of rice and beans in its
usual minute ration. Kapserere food couldn’t even sustain a rat for a week. It’s
a miracle we survived there.
Food aside, Mr. Wambongo strolled
to class that day with one intention – to make me in particular never forget
him. I admit he was a good teacher. I was a little gutted when he left
unceremoniously. He had asked about anyone who had lost a ball in an unusual
drawl. It still rings in my head as I write this. Dickson, discounting the fact
that his name has a dick in it, shot his hand up. It’s like he had missed
raising his hand up, considering the fact that, academically, Dickson and I
never missed a flogging.
We did not know where the
conversation was leading to as Mr. Wambongo expertly guided it as though it
were boat on a treacherous part of the river. I do not know how it led to who
was playing in class, but it suddenly turned to a football team being named. Dickson
by the way didn’t even know how to kick a ball, at least in the proper way. The
captain was named, who in turned named the next person, and it went like that
until I was named. Victor Kiptum named me. That’s what I remember very clearly.
In fact I can even see him turning, as if seeking my approval and then spitting
out my name. Because I had never learnt how to snitch, I calmly told Mr.
Wambongo that the team was complete. It had Radovan Kimutai, Victor Kiptum, Kelvin
Kipkoech and I, Brian Rop. We may have been more than four, details escape me
now. It not being an exam, I can confidently say that we were four.
It turns out we were wanted in
connection with broken spectacles. We were then taken to Mr. Wambongo’s office
upon which our names were entered in the infamous black book. Infidels. Degenerates.
Contemptible junkies. An afternoon that had promised to glide past like it has
done for ages was suddenly covered with an ominous gloom. A novel that one had
promised himself to tackle suddenly had to wait there, naked as we attended
urgent disciplinary matter which we completely had no clue about.
I do not remember whether Mr.
Wambongo gave us a beating but I damn well remember that we were given a punishment
to wash the classroom. We were in class seven at the time, and forming the bulk
of the team during our usual match between class seven and eight, it might not
surprise me, had opta started taking stats, that it was the day we got
walloped. You know, like the 8 – 2 drabbing Man U gave the ever lowly, under
talented Arsenal.
We took our punishment without
complains. We scrubbed the class clean within twenty minutes and with very
little amount of water. Then we casually walked out and crossed the road by
ourselves –which was a mistake punishable by death. No pupil was required to
cross the Eldoret-Ravine road alone, you had to be supervised. Again, quite
casually, we changed and hit the field like the players we were.
It turns out, as we mused, that
we had been used to sanitise someone’s negligence. Her name was Sandra. She had
broken her glasses or even lost them, and there was no way she could break the
news to her parents without risking third degree burns from her parent’s ire. There
had been talks that we’d even buy the goddamn spectacles. To the extent of my
knowledge I do not know whether our parents were informed.
As we mused, quite bitter at the
injustice, there was absolutely no way a ball, kicked as it was supposed to,
suddenly developed a brain that told to go, open Sandra’s desk, break her
spectacles and calmly fall down like nothing has happened. Our bitterness would
have frozen a loaf bread. We completely had no clue about those spectacles. We were victimized, period. Because we were
children of lesser god’s, at the time.
Right now I am not bitter. Given Sandra’s
position, I do not know how I would have broken the news to my parents. Man, my
eyesight would have fixed itself. As they say, sometimes, the end justifies the
means. I hope it did, Sandra.
