The Food was Better than High School

I spent my last two years of primary education in a boarding school. The photo below is the evidence. I won't even say which of these boys is me, although my ashy knees and smile should give me away instantly.*facepalm*

You can blame Facebook for this atrocity hitting the internet

 Whatever I can remember of this educational institution is bittersweet. First of all the friendships we made in that environment were of an enduring sort. There can be absolutely no pretentiousness in an environment where all your worldly possessions fit in a 2' by 1' metal box liable to rust. A snobbish brat could only be a snobbish brat for a week, MAX, and then he or she got with the program. (Despite the picture's suggestion, it was a mixed "coed "school.)

Quite a program it was. Watchtowers manned by bow-and-arrow bearing watchmen ringed the premises.

Academically, "bringing marks" was the name of the game. Many exams were administered in quick succession, and then each student's marks output was, um, rigorously evaluated after each exam. "You have refused to bring marks," was an accusation from a teacher that accompanied a ruthless lashing. The canes were fanbelts - rudimentary whips. Luckily for me, for the most part, I was "bringing marks" in bucketloads. So the cane and I interacted mostly in the extracurricular departments - which still covered an extensive scope of life disciplines. I remember getting caned once for drawing cartoons in class.

I particularly remember a stretch of depressing loneliness when my clique of buddies suddenly and inexplicably turned their backs on me, and weeks later, just as suddenly made friends again. I was torn between rupture of joy and feelings of betrayal at the instant they came back. I will never forget that moment; I cried on the spot.

Fond memories remain. Here, I made friends with the girl who would later became my best friend; we were deskmates.

PS: the photo is enduring evidence that I have historically never been very conscious about my appearance. But this photo-sermon reveals that its been a crisis.

PPS: I don't even smile like that any more. Sad.

Mum versus Steve Austin

Before I learnt that WWE was all just some stage-managed, scripted posturing, and that their ‘special moves in the ring’ were choreographed, I was a big fan. My brother too. Back then we were tiny tots. Unfortunately, we each supported rival fighters.

I liked The Rock, likely because he was the obvious underdog, even though I suspected that his favorite line to shout was an incomplete statement:“If you smeeeeell…. What The Rock is cooking!” So what, if you smell it?

My brother was a fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin, who swaggered in announced by the signature sound of shattering glass. I hated him, because he loved showing the finger and was always quaffing alcohol from cans and being a general lout, throwing emptied beer cans about. Unfortunately for me, Stone Cold Steve Austin regularly whooped The Rock black and blue, which may have laid the foundations for my empathy towards underdogs, which endures to this day.

Snap to a hot afternoon in the car park of Maxwell SDA Church Nairobi. My brother and I were seated in the stuffy car waiting for mum to finish whatever it was she was finishing with other mums. The boredom and impatience drove us into taking up the causes of our respective WWE fighters; chanting their respective slogans over and over again in an attempt to outshout each other. It was ridiculous barbarity. In hindsight, I daresay we were semi-consciously conducting our sibling rivalry behind the mask of wrestler allegiances. That's probably the same reason I prefer Arsenal and he prefers Manchester United.

 

Point is, mum walks into the car just as my brother has his biceps bunched and he is shouting “STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN!”

Now there is trouble. “What does that mean?” asks mum sternly.
 

Lil bro attempts to shrug it off. “Just someone on TV.”

“Someone in wrestling!” I clarify.

“Okay,” says mum, “What does Stone Cold mean?”

My bro and I look at each other and instantly recognize what’s up. This can only end in PUNISHMENT.

“Cold like a stone,” I venture, acting the fool.

“No,” says mum.

“Cold and hard like a stone,” insists Bro, “because he’s strong.” I nod.

Mum: “If you don’t tell me right now what Stone Cold means, you’ ll see fire burning!”

This forced me to contemplate the issue, although I knew the answer. Stone Cold meant the guy couldn’t care less if he broke your neck or murdered your young family. His other nickname was “The Rattlesnake”. But these were insights I could not present to Mum because then it would mean the argument took a step forward into WHY we were supporting such a misfit.

“That’s not fair, we don’t know!” whined Bro.

“I’m still thinking,” I said, buying time.

Mum knew we were lying. Still, bro and I sat looking lugubrious for the remainder of the trip home. Fortunately we didn’t ‘see fire burning,’ either because mum forgot, or because she let it slip.

But the way I figure it today, Mum soundly beat Steve Austin that day, and it was a FLAWLESS VICTORY.
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PS: I don’t know why I remember these childhood events. They just come back.

For Passing Time

As the title readily confesses, this post is a way of passing time. I'm waiting to meet a Sister-in-Christ, after which I'll meet an ex-best-friend-in-Christ for her amazing company over late lunch and a music critique. Rather than waiting passively I have seen it fit to foist a frivolous post upon my faithful followers. For which reason all will be forgiven who stop reading this post right now.

One clarification about my blog: I never intend to preach, but it's not my fault if the world we live in easily lends itself to sermons (I admit: I have a lot of "shouldness" and "oughtness"). Shoot me; I'm an idealist, and I also say it how I see it, so there.

Now, the story.

When I was a kid, we played energetic games in the hood with agemates. None of that indoors PlayStation business. Brick Game was the most advanced bit of tech in those days. But Brick Game was the exception: the main feature of child's play was the exertion of sweat and loud exuberant noisemaking. So we chased each other up and down, fought (and fought again to avenge losing the first fight), played soccer even in high noon, protected younger siblings from bullies, ran from the bullies ourselves after a mostly symbolic punch, climbed fences and ripped the seats of our pants, played marbles till the index finger was sore, ran alongside passing trains declaring "CHU-CHU-TRAAAAIN!!!" over and over again. For some reason or other, amidst all the excitement and rough falls on tarmac, a kid would lose a shoe.

(Alright. So the post is really about childhood reminisces.)

When a kid lost a shoe, it was trouble. He had to troop all over the estate, crying, bawling, his plenteous tears blurring his search efforts while his bare foot treaded hot tarmac. It was pitiful. His friends (it was always a boy - girls hardly ever lost a shoe, not even the tomboys) would help his search with the incessant reminder that he would be whooped at home if the shoe wasn't found. At the end of a fruitless search, during which some jerk-ass adult invariably told a kid "A dog got your shoe," the tiny tot went home crying shrilly in preparation for a sound beating.

One day the bully lost his shoe. He came along when we were particularly bored, and started messing with the tiniest of us. The bully's weapon of torture was a large brown cockroach he'd tied on the end of a string. Most chillingly, it was still alive, and it seemed to fly when he whirled it around his head. When the psychological reign of terror neared the "pissing in your pants" threshhold, I and others present started giving the bully earnest heartfelt sermons about bad manners. He laughed in scorn and popped the cockroach into his mouth. And then we his victims  ran screaming in all directions. I ran faster than them all and disappeared early, with my lil bro hot on my tail. We lost him.

Next we saw of the bully, he was missing one shoe, minus the cockroach also. Probably he swallowed it. But the shoe factor was oddly gratifying.

"Utachapwa, Utachapwa!!!" We sang victoriously and mercilessly at the now panicked, searching bully. He would be beaten at home by his mother. That's what mothers did to kids who lost a shoe back then. Our band of kids regrouped, following Bully around the neighborhood as he searched high and low, tormenting him with our repetitive and boisterous Utachapwa song. Some of us even danced with unfeigned glee, busting spontaneous moves to the tune of repeated "utacha-pwa!".

Eventually, Bully gave up on the search for the "golden shoe;" his salvation from a sure beating had proved elusive.

So he turned on us. A different idea had entered is head. He couldn't find his shoe, so, he figured, everybody would have to lose their shoes. (I'll skip the part about how he obtained all our shoes without a real fight. It involved a brief chase and a futile scramble in a dead end ally.)

Let's just say that day nearly all of us were beaten by our mothers. There were many tears but I can laugh now, especially recalling that my mother simply flat-out REFUSED to swallow the line that a bully took my shoe and threw it to the dogs to eat. My lies, according to her, were growing more desperate by the day.