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!).

Safe Driving for Dummies

Influx of Dummies on Our Roads

There is a noticeable increase of dummies on our roads today. This is not a result of any scientific research. However, I don’t think anyone has to have a certain aptitude to be able to identify a dummy. By dummy I don’t mean a mannequin of the kind used in clothing stores and made of plastic or glass fibre. Neither do I mean a cadaver found in a morgue and used for teaching human anatomy to medical students. The dummy I am talking about is a normal breathing human being of between average and above average aptitude in academics. The dummy I am referring to is also a proven specimen in a technical profession and is also possibly a good home maker judging by the happiness and contentment apparent in his or her offspring.

My concern is not what the said dummy does at home or at work. My source of worry and perplexity is in how the now confirmed dummy behaves when he or she gets behind the wheel of their second most or most valuable asset, depending on personal priorities. In Layman’s terms, I am looking at how abnormally dangerously, otherwise normal people drive.

Mobile Phones

I have noted with both concern and confusion that many motorists usually wait until they get into their cars and are on the move to make that all-important phone. Our parking lot at the office becomes a mess due to the people out to prove (without much success) that they can multitask. This is in fact one of the reasons I have come to believe that even women can’t multitask judging by the way they hold everybody up behind them as they attempt to drive and talk on the phone at the same time. It would be bearable if talking on the phone was the only disaster we were trying to deal with in this city. Unfortunately, the suicidal Nairobi motorists have graduated to scrolling, texting, and even Whatsapping as they drive. I shudder to imagine what they are going to do next (watching movies comes to mind).

Crawling on the Fast Lane

Our new super highway is the kind of stuff dreams of poor countries are made of. So much room for overtaking and extra lanes to allow for safe turning off means there is no reason for pile-ups on the road. This is however not so. I have noticed a now common feature on all our highways. I often find people crawling on the inner lane of a section where one is allowed to drive at 100 KPH. This would be bearable and maybe only slightly irritating were it not for two other goons driving alongside and at the same speed as the dummy on the inner lane. This then means that all of us have to join the procession of seemingly not so bright people in the hope that one of them will realise what is happening and get off the road.

Wrong Lanes

Still on the issue of lanes, there are some dummies who never seem to know where they are going. They approach a roundabout on the wrong lane and attempt to change at the worst possible moment when they are sure to cause a serious gridlock or some dent-inducing mishaps with other motorists. There are the same people who either don’t know or won’t care to use accelerating or decelerating lanes when joining or leaving the highway.

Digital to Analogue Migration

After investing millions (possibly billions) in state-of-the-art traffic control equipment and systems, it is difficult for me to understand why we have to have baton-wielding walkie-talkie-chattering policemen overriding those same systems. The result is depressing traffic jams resembling giant parking lots where we have to watch the traffic countdown clocks as if they were movie screens just to kill the time. The only outcome of this that I can call positive is the fact that those policemen will not become redundant any time soon. I guess that can be called job-creation albeit in a weird sort of way.

From the time the automated speed cameras were fitted on beams high above all the new roads (and a lot of the old ones too), I am estimating most of the bulbs are almost due for change judging by the frequency and intensity of the flashing. They should have been donated for use in some poor old woman’s mud-walled hut during the much-publicised Last-Mile project by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.

P.S. When the maximum speed limit on the Trans-Africa Highway between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Kangemi was set to 50KPH, did somebody actually drive on the stretch to see how practical it was? Just wondering!

Blood-Thick Strongholds

A Generation of Choices

We have been taught, nay, imposed with the philosophy that the choice of anything is in our hands. We are lucky to be in the generation that can make decisions on all things that are important in our lives and even those that don’t concern us. When we are reviewing our constitution, people are sent round to collect views from the smallest person in the most unassuming village in the darkest corner of our vast nation. The same happens when there is a pending budget for the national government and county governments.

A Generation of No Choices

Having outlined the vastness of choices we have, it is ironical that there is a crucial area where we behave as we have no choice. When it comes to political affiliations, our country gets divided into strongholds where we are grouped in ethnic groupings by our beloved politicians. We all stand firmly behind our respective kingpins, ready to be traded and moved from one tribal consortium to the next. All our talk of poor governance and plundering of our resources by these same politicians are put on the back burner. We even seem to forget our history and civic lessons where powerful individuals set up entire countries and regions to fight with each other to the death in order to safeguard their ill-gotten wealth.

The Consequences of Choices

During the last elections, the US warned Kenya about the (undesirable) consequences of choices. This was in reference to the choice of two candidates who at that time had ongoing cases at the International Criminal Court. Although the US later appeared to relax on their warning (even becoming quite friendly), their warning seemed to show some level of validity judging by the disgruntlement of Kenyans on the way the Government is conducting its affairs. This is particularly so with regard to runaway corruption.

Strongholds – The Political Currency of Exchange

Blood is thicker than water. The average human being, given a choice, would stand with a kinsman as opposed to a stranger in the event of a crisis or other problem. My Layman’s mind informs me that this was an evolutionary development to help with the continued existence of the race. In this day and age however, blood relations are used for an entirely different purpose. Blood or kinship is now the basis for building a political power base. In our country we are constantly reminded of our roots and warned in no uncertain terms that our tribe comes first.

I have been following the political realignments that are taking place as they always do every five years. They bear an uncanny resemblance to the way farmers move sheep from one paddock to another. The same way a farmer sorts through his sheep and groups them in certain categories such as age, weight, and colour, is how voters are being categorised and placed in paddocks with others of similar ethnic background. In the eyes of politicians, we have the same value as sheep; humble and ready to be moved about, sold and slaughtered at will. We are worse than dogs because no farmer will sell or slaughter his dog.

 

The politically correct term for paddock on the Kenyan political scene is “Stronghold”. It sounds like a nice place to be; only that it’s not. A stronghold is a prison where a person is held against his will. Once inside the stronghold, he gives up his freedom to think or do what he feels is right. He is like the Africans when they were held in concentration camps by their colonisers. The only difference between a stronghold and a concentration camp is that the later imprisoned someone physically while the former incarcerates a person mentally. If you ask me, a stronghold is the worst form of prison.

Redefining Strongholds

I look forward to the day when we will be imprisoned by ideologies. When we shall be willing to die for what is right. When we shall form new tribes based on what we believe in and not on how the vowels are arranged in our surnames. That, my fellow Laymen, is when I will be proud to declare my tribe and defend it. For now, belonging to either this or that ethnic group is just a burden which we all have to bear as those who constantly remind us of our supposed allegiance, milk our country dry. All is not lost however. We can begin the formation of useful strongholds immediately by electing people whose consciences are still alive.

A Bloody Red Valentine

I was passing time in the lush and expansive gardens of the Mount Kenya Safari Club. It was a chilly evening and the top of the shy mountain was, as usual, hiding in a shroud of dense cloud. The visible part of the slopes had more snow than I had come to notice previously. The snow came all the way down and gradually changed into ice right up to the slab of rock on which I was standing. I was thinking to myself, “There is no such thing as global warming. This mountain has more snow and ice than it had when I looked at it from the pictures taken during colonial times.”

I was jolted back to my senses by a heavy explosion which shook the very ground on which I was standing. I staggered slightly but didn’t fall. Before I could recover my balance, another explosion took place. This time it was much closer since I could see the spray of sparks. I realised in shock that we were being bombed. I dove to the ground behind a small boulder as the third bomb hit the ground so close to me that some of the sparks caught my shirt. I woke up with a start only to realise it was a bad dream.

Tense Times

We are living with a lot of tension as a country. People are very edgy and judging from the triggers that set them off on social media, then it is safe to conclude that we on the verge of war. Politicians have been going round calling all and sundry to come out and register in large numbers so that they can either retain or win back leadership seats. Today is the last day of that exercise which will also mark the start of intensified political campaigns.

A Bloody Valentine

Valentine died for love. If anybody dies before, during, or after the forthcoming elections, it will not be for love. It will be for hatred. It will either be because somebody hates his tribe’s guts so much that he will do away with him as a statement, or that he will hate somebody else’s tribe so much that he will die fighting. All this will happen because those in power cannot imagine others taking over from them and those wanting the power cannot bear to imagine those in power remaining so for one day longer. If it was just a handful of politicians hurling insults at each other, it would be bearable. Unfortunately, this small group has mobilised entire tribes and conglomerates of tribes to stand behind them. This line-up is what marks our valentine’s day this year.

Happy Valentine’s Day

I am seated hear on my plastic chair at my plastic table fighting mosquitoes as my neighbours snore away. I am asking you. Would rather die for love or hate? As you either register to vote or abstain, are you doing either for love or hate? Does this Valentine’s Day signal for you a season of hope or a state of hopelessness? If you love your neighbour, is it because he has always stood by you or because he is from your clan? If you hate him, is it because he has been unkind to you or because your tribal kingpin says he is wrong for you. This valentine’s day, I am only wishing my sweetheart a good day. I can’t generalise because I don’t know what it means for other people.

Hi-Tech Fighting

If we fight again, it will not be with machetes. It will be hi-tech. We are going to have GPS guided Rocket Propelled Grenades like in my dream above. We then won’t need to spend cold nights planning attacks on our neighbours. We can execute everything from our smart Phones while seated at a private beach in a neighbouring country with our feet touching the water and sipping ice-cold margaritas from umbrella-clad glasses. There will also be no need for hand-to-hand combat using bloody knives. We shall use our 3-D printed guns made with some advanced composite material which can pass any metal detector in town.

Those who are too cowardly to stand the sight of blood will of course launch cruel cyber-attacks on helpless members of the opposite sex. They will stalk them online for days and hack all their social media accounts. This phase of war is already underway.

I am a Layman but one with a fertile imagination. I urge you to register as a voter and to vote. It is the only way you can help avert the scary scenario (a massive iceberg whose tip is outlined above). Have a somewhat happy valentine’s day.

Stuck in the Friend Zone

“Oh! He is just a friend”, says many a girl when asked about the nice young man she has been spending a lot of time with. This is in sharp irony with the common lamentation that there are no men to marry nowadays. These eligible bachelors are stuck in what has popularly become known as the ‘Friend Zone’. All this while, the marriageable girls are busy auctioning their dignity to the village bad boys.

Of Football Players on the Pitch and Bench; and the Cheering Squad

During a football game, there are three distinct groups of people present. The first group is of course the players. These are the ones who make people go there in the first place. Secondly there are reserve players. These are on the bench when the game starts. They may or may not play in a particular game. Whether they play or not depends on the coach. They therefore just wait anxiously in the hope that the coach will substitute one of the players on the pitch and call them in to play.

Thirdly, during a football match, there are spectators. These come to watch the game and each of them usually supports one the teams playing. Spectators are as diverse as they are many. Some may have been star footballers in their day and are there to feed their nostalgia. The majority however, are those who never played any football in their lives (unless kicking a ball made of old paper bags during break time in their primary school days could be considered football).

Bad Boy Syndrome

For some reason no one has been able to satisfactorily explain to me, and using the football analogy above, why many girls have parked their ideal mates on the bench. They have then proceeded to put serial womanisers in the field. They have ignored calls by spectators to call in the perfect players from the benches. When the match is inevitably lost, these same girls will cry their eyes out moaning how men are ungrateful brutes. They will talk about how they gave these losers every opportunity to redeem themselves and prove their worth at being in the girls’ lives. As painful as this scenario appears, it is not news anymore. Neither will it end there. You will find these bad boys playing again on some other unwitting girl’s pitch.

The Need for Excitement

The main reason given by women for being drawn to bad boys is excitement. They claim that Casanovas are fun to be with and make them laugh. These boys are said to ignore the small flaws in a girl and make her feel on top of the world. The boys are confident and are not embarrassed to do the small things that make girls go gaga such as hugging in public or walking hand-in-hand. An excitable and naive girl therefore becomes pliable clay in the hands of such a boy.

Fitting In Vs Pursuing Sensibility

It is an increasingly common script in this generation that fitting in is more important than being sensible. This mantra has led many girls to get into predatory relationships with unsuitable men just because it is more popular. They have let their heart-guard down and welcomed unlikely mates into their lives. All this while, the men who would have loved them unconditionally are wallowing on the sidelines.

No Good Men

I am saddened by the claim that there are no longer any good men. I think this is just an excuse women use to be with the wrong men. When a woman says that all men are dogs, she just wants to justify her low standards. I however feel that it is wrong to generalise either the badness or goodness of men (and also of women).

Just because you are attracted to the wrong man does not give you the right to conclude that all men are bad. “Where are all the good men then?” you might ask. Just look at the benches. They are seated there hoping you will come to your senses soon enough and call them in. They are saddened by the fact that you have already compromised your reputation but can still accommodate you as long as you turn around immediately.

Ladies, do you still believe there are no good men?