A few weeks to the beginning of KCSE that year, Moi decided to visit the late Oginga Odinga, the then Official Opposition leader. The whole student fraternity of Ngere High and other neighbouring schools gathered at Kolenyo Market to sing praises to the “father of the nation” while en-route to Bondo town. After thoroughly twisting our waists in dance, Moi bent down to his limo and what he came out with was a huge bundle of very new precious papers bearing his portrait. “Which school is this?” he asked. “Ngere High!!!!” Alwala Mixed!!!!” “Bonde Mixed!!!” “Aduong’ Monge Primary!!!” “Ochok!!!!!””St. Barnabas!!” Utterly every student, by the road side, shouted the name of his school. Baba went with the loudest shout and handed over the bunch to our Deputy Principal, Mr. Obunga, leaving the other schools empty handed. He then bought the bananas, sugarcane and the snacks from the vendors asking them to distribute to the crowd. We were later informed that the huge bundle was a cool fifty thousand Kenya Shillings (not Zimbawe Dollars) in five hundred denominations. The highest Kenyan currency denomination was five hundred hen.
Each stream was asked to discuss what would be done with the money. Form two West settled for the purchase of music system and a 21 inch coloured television. The big boys, those who had very limited time in school, the so called wise men of the year, chose something which to my humble understanding was very strange – a bull. This bull, according to my adult brothers, was not to be used for the collection of sperms for artificial insemination but was to be turned into a sumptuous meal which would eventually disappear in our stomachs en-route to the pit latrines. Obunga ended up buying only the TV as “the cash was not enough to purchase everything” the students wanted. The senior boys were very mad.
During our examination, Red Cross became very thirsty for blood and their first stop was Masada. Their target – the innocent students who had not been consulted on the whole impromptu blood donation project. We were asked to give our generous blood contribution “at will” and “without any coercion” (as if those words existed in Masada). At that time one Hongo was the incoming SSP deputized by our very own, John Ombajo. Whether it was planned or not, I do not know, what I know is that Hongo cornered and “persuaded” me to the donation table. I impregnated a whole pant with my “donated” blood and thereafter drunk a free fanta soda to add me some energy. I can’t remember how I reached my bed after that. I can only remember waking up the following morning for Agriculture exams where sentences were appearing backwards like Chinese. I was still feeling English-English (Nausea). I did not pass that exam together with the subsequent ones; a fact that made dad very mad at me. The teachers also presumed that I was just mouthy for nothing.
I went to Mamboleo, where dad was staying with step mom, to submit my results. I was greatly lectured but all that did not increase my marks. I tried to explain to him what happened but he could hear none of that. He rather blamed my failure on “this salvation thing”. He gave me two options and asked me to give him feedback the following morning; “Drop the salvation thing and continue with High School or continue with the foolishness and drop out at form two” He roared. “Dad, I do not need a whole night to think about this matter. Whatever it is, I’m not quitting salvation” I whispered respectfuly. I saw horror in the old man’s eyes as he took a deep breath. He looked at the ground then turned to me before staring aimlessly at the roof then went into dead silence for close to three minutes. He then opened his mouth saying “Since you’re my son, I wouldn’t allow you to go into the streets. I will rather take you to a village polytechnic where you will do some courses with the class eight drop outs. There is where you belong”. The next day, I was asked the course I had chosen and I settled for carpentry. I was taken to an experienced carpenter whose workshop was on the opposite side of our compound to train me, at a subsidized fee, in making household furniture. In less than three weeks, I had known how to make beds, tables and simple sofa sets but stools were proving very hard for me as the joints were too close to each other and requiring Mortise and Tenon (tongue-and-groove) joints at the same time.
On the other side of the word, the village, my sheep and chicken were doing very well. I estimated the chicken to be above fifty in number all being hens with a few cockerels waiting for their turn to slide into dad’s stomach. The sheep were just about ten; I was told that some were slaughtered for dads VIP guests while my brother’s only sheep had been given away, earlier, as a gift to dad’s special friend. I still remember how George Awat a.ka Jakolanya reacted when he received the news.
When schools reopened, in January the following year, I dropped out of that carpentry training stuff and went back to Masada via the village where I sold some chicken to raise cash for shopping and little pocket money. I went directly into the Principals office and told him that dad would pay the fees in two weeks time. “He has asked me to tell you to give him time to raise the funds” I said by faith and since dad was a member of the board there was no way the Principal would have sent me back home. I was also sure dad wouldn’t just dare take me out of school.
I was drafted to form three North, instead of West, where I was made the class secretary. All my friends went to West. I had to share the same stream with one Ongele Fuel, George Orinda and Arodi the black man and the ugly Oracha (not real name). As a class Secretary, I was in charge of writing minutes, making sure that the black board was clean, replacing filled-up exercise books and serving coffee to my stream mates. I had trouble in almost all these area. Ongele was an avid footballer who would eat the whole kitchen if given the chance. He loved top layer more than life itself and, together with his friend George Orinda, they gave me too much trouble during coffee breaks. Orinda gave me a crazy nick name due to the fact that I was very strict on them when it came to coffee; this guy would drink a whole nyuol ber (huge sufuria) of coffee if I dared even wink – I had to keep both eyes on him. I wondered where all the food these two guys took went to since their bodies refused to react.
There was this maths teacher, Bando, who did not like me from the time I wrote the life changing poem. He would rush to class at the start of his lesson to find the blackboard still crowded with the assignments from the previous lesson. This would make him throw tantrums by dusting the black board duster on my innocent head and face. I was then a senior student who could not just tolerate a camouflaged bully in the name of a maths teacher. Where would I report Mr. Bando anyway? He even insisted that I sit in front so as to face his wrath at will on a daily basis. He made mathematics so hard for me to fathom, a subject that I had to understand to succeed in my dream of becoming an Accountant. Dad, wanted me to be a Civil Engineer in order to work with him in his company – Migingo Construction Co. Ltd. Working with him was something I never dreamt about. I became uninterested in building stuff.
Bando used to wonder how I was still passing this subject despite his frustrations. He almost killed me when he realized that I would go to Mr. Bolo’s (form 3W maths teacher) in the evenings for free
At least I had a teacher who made life a bit interesting in this “Guatamano Bay” High school – Mr. Oga, the Kiswahili teacher. He was just so funny especially when teaching a topic he loved most – Ngeli. He didn’t like seeing students rush to the latrines during his class. He could say things like “what of if I also start rushing to the latrines after every ten minutes?”. This was the teacher who taught me that “a gentleman goes to the toilet ones in the morning and waits for the next morning”. There were also times when Kiswahili would refuse to find a safe landing in the skulls of the likes of Orinda, Aredi and Ongele Fuel. This was the time Mr. Oga would climb the seats and desks and shout in Swahili causing laughter to those of us who at least were born in town. Oga later got into trouble with us when he decided to teach Ngeli for close to three weeks – a topic that would ordinarily take just a week. We documented his behavior in our class minutes which Mr. Ochung’, the senior master but our class Master refused to sign.
Mr. Ochung was a very great English Grammar Teacher. I would have understood everything were it not for this same Orinda boy. When Ochung asked him to make a sentence with the phrase “showing at the elbow” he said “Awat is showing at the elbow”. That time my two shirts hard holes at the elbow which gave this coffee boy a chance to hit me at my weakest point. Showing at the elbow was a phase which was sued to depict deep poverty.
Mr. Nyakwaka was a neat, tall but slender Biology teacher who would attack bread from within. He never ate the crust of bread but threw it to the dustbin to the dismay of the people “beating dry”. Picture yourself showing a dog some bones then you deep it in the pit latrine – that’s the way the “dry people” were looking at Nyakwaka when he threw the crust. Mr. Obunga was our English Literature teacher. Our set books were “Romeo & Juliet” and “The Concubine”. These were very romantic novels but they sounded horrific owing to the way Ong’a looked at us. Even when he quoted the sweet conversation between Romeo and Juliet, we felt some elements of fear running down our spines as we never knew when the guy would get mad. Personally, I loved the guy even though he refused to mark my composition, at one point, because I depicted myself as a bank robber while he knew me in real life as a preacher and a CU Chairman. “Whatever you write is a clear indication of what you think” he shuted at me.
There was this group that Obunga didn’t like very much – Wajuaji (The I know it all); there were the Wajuaji wa Nairobi and Wajuaji wa Kisumu. Obviously there were no wajuaji wa Reru as those of us from Reru were referred to as Jopunde (The donkey people). Wajuaji wa Nairobi had very strange stories that would amaze those of us who had never landed feet in the capital city. There was this time when they were talking about a day when a KQ plane made an emergency landing at Moi Avenue. I sat silently wondering how a plane can land in the streets without making it to the headline news. These were people with Goliath stories and none of them lived in Dandora, K-South, Kayole, Ruayi and such estates; they all claimed to be residents of Kilesh, Runda, Karen, Westy and Parklands. Wajuaji wa Kisumu on the other hand looked like the sons of those Kondele thugs and like their Nairobi counterparts they had nothing to offer to the right thinking members of the society.
Rest In Peace Mr. Bolo, Mr. Nyakwaka and Mr. Oga (What about Mr. Bando – is this guy still alive?)
Yours in the mix,
Migingo Awat
Japunda
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