A Bullying Reminisce

His name was Teresia. We had to carry him in his bed all the way to Kiandutu dorms (so named after the slums in Thika due to their general direction from the rest of the school). We did this every other evening after night preps so that he could have a chat with his friends in Kiandutu. We used to resemble a funeral procession with two rows of solemn-faced Form ones (Njũkas) painstakingly manoeuvring the rough and unlit path between Nile House and Senegal. Although I was small then, I was not the smallest Form one. The smallest never served as a pall-bearer. He had the important task of gently patting Teresia who would be sleeping cosily under the covers as the rest of us belted out soothing lullabies.

Teresia (whose real name we never got to know) was in Form Six when I was in Form One. He was diminutive but he made up for his size with violent fierceness. Although he never beat us physically, he made us do things that make me laugh when I look back today.  

Head Shock

A guy would place one his hands, palm-down, on your head. He would then use the other hand, clenched into a fist, to hit the one on your head. The result would be numbing pain that travelled like an electric shock throughout your body and exit from your toes. A head shock was one of the most dreaded forms of punishments given to Form ones. Just the thought of getting one would make even the most hard-headed Njũka obey all kinds of ridiculous instructions.

Driving a Bag

In the mid eighties, myriad bags with interesting and hitherto unseen features flooded the market. One of the most popular then was the now ubiquitous bag with wheels. In those years it was considered a real luxury to own a bag with wheels. It was therefore unfortunate for any Njũka to bring such a bag to school. We used to sleep in those long dorms which were un-partitioned save for two cubes at the end for A-levels (Form 5 and 6). The corridor between the two rows of beds on either side however, ran the entire length of the dorm. It was on this corridor that form ones would drive the unfortunate owner’s bag, filled to bursting with dirty clothes. They would have to drive fast and make all the sounds that a car makes (including changing gears) as the perpetrators sat on the beds above and cheered. This activity would occupy the better part of Saturday morning after general cleaning.

Messenger Services

“Give me nine quarters!” This was a common call by form ones at the canteen. This was because Njũkas also doubled as the messenger and courier service in our school. The sad thing about the one buying nine quarters of bread above was that they all belonged to different people and it would be a problem reconciling the respective change. Any shortage would be paid by the messenger. To avoid becoming messengers, we would hide at the dark basket ball court until people went to bed. Many times however, it was difficult to avoid being sent all over.

Backfiring Revenge Attempts

In addition to bread at the school canteen, we used to buy mandazi from one of the workers who sold them from her house in the servant’s quarters after prep. Here again, the form one messenger services were required. Due to the hatred we felt for our senior brothers, some of us came up with crazy ways of revenging against them without their knowledge. One of the form ones in my class had a very big mouth. Whenever he was sent for a mandazi, he would unwrap it and put it in his mouth. He would then remove it, wipe the saliva and rewrap it before taking it to the owner. Other form ones would tear-up in mirth as they watched him do this.

Another form one had the habit of placing the mandazi on the dusty path and kicking it all the way to the dorm outside where he would dust it off and rewrap it in readiness for eating by the bully. Watching the form three eating that mandazi knowing where it had been was something I found very fulfilling in a diabolical sort of way. There was one day however, when the revenge mission went awyrily wrong. As the Njuka was kicking the mandazi along the dark path, it got lost in the bushes. Try as he might, even with the assistance of other form ones, he could not find it. He also didn’t have money to replace it. He was forced to conduct an impromptu harambee among his fellow form ones in order to buy a replacement otherwise he might not have lived to tell the tale.

Promotion

The year I spent in form one was equivalent to three normal years. I could not wait for it to end. The end usually came in dramatic ways for most form ones. In our dorm, there used to be a battered sufuria (aluminium cooking pot) on the ceiling of the captains cubicle. Towards the end of third term, it would be retrieved for the purpose of promoting the outgoing form ones. One evening before supper, one of the form threes called me to where he was sitting in a circle with a bunch of other boys. The old sufuria was placed in the centre. “Pick it up and fill it with water”, he said, pointing to the sufuria. I went to the bathroom and filled the sufuria to the brim (I later wished I had not done that).

When I brought the sufuria back, I was asked to drink all the water. I did amid a lot of laughter and cheering. After that I did not feel so well. I was all sweaty and burping loudly. Needless to say, I did not go for supper. Movement was a problem because every time I stopped suddenly my now visibly protruding tummy would sway from side to side pulling me along with it. I had now graduated.

P.S. Recent reports about form ones at Alliance High School being made to sleep on a grave made me look back at my time in form one. We were fortunate there was no grave at our school otherwise we might have been made to do worse than sleep on it (like dig up the bones!).