Thread by @CSakwah, STORY THREAD A repost. Ten years ago, I sat for my French [...]

STORY THREAD

A repost.

Ten years ago, I sat for my French paper 3 KCSE paper. French paper three was sat a few days before the main exam started. Due to the scarcity of French-speaking teachers in Kenya, exams were done from a common center.

Different schools used to converge at one school and sit for the paper which was mainly oral exams; listening, writing, and speaking. In our year, the exams were to be taken from Friends School Kamusinga. It was an outing of its own, nonetheless, an academic trip.

On that day, I was on the duty roaster as a classroom sweeper. Satan convinced me not to sweep a classroom in which I was not going to spend the day. Just no way. That is when drama and trouble started following me on that day.

At around 8 Am, I left my half-swept classroom to go to my dormitory to prepare for the outing.
While in the bathroom, my class prefect, knocked on the door with a report from the deputy. ‘Collins Depa anakuita,’ he said.
‘For what reasons?’ I asked calmly.

I was taking a shower for the first time since I had taken one during prayer day, a month earlier.
‘It was your duty to sweep the class today, you didn’t!’ he commanded.
‘Man, I have a KCSE paper to prepare for.

I did not have the time to sweep a class I wasn’t going to spend the day in.’ I said jokingly.
‘You will explain this to the deputy.’
‘Okay, mimi naoga!’
‘Alafa sasa?’
‘Ambia depa naoga aningoje,’ I said jokingly. While that was meant to be a joke, Kevin didn’t take it that way.

He left immediately to the DP’s office. I was in the bathroom hamming peacefully when a bang on the bathroom door startled me.
‘Mjinga wewe. Acha ujinga’ was the first word that came out of my mouth.
‘Kijana unaita nani mjinga?’ the deputy thundered angrily.

I had just called the deputy principal ‘mjinga.’ Unknowingly. That was like treason, homicide, terrorism, human trafficking, drug peddling and money laundering in one sentence. The judge was the deputy principal.
He clicked his lips angrily. ‘sorry, sir.

I thought it was......’ I apologized.
‘You thought it was who? A student? Do we teach you to be vulgar to one another in the school?’ he cut me short. I was panicking terribly.
‘No, sir. I am sorry, sir!’ I talked faster.
‘Mjinga wewe. I sent for you, then you sent the prefect

back to tell me that you are busy, then you insult me? Get out of there!’ he thundered angrily. I cursed Kevin. Why did he take the joke too far?
I had walked into hell, the only way to survive was to grab the bull by its horns.

I opened the bathroom door and pretended to run out naked with soap and soap’s foam smeared all over my body. The deputy didn’t expect that move. ‘Where are you going looking that way without clothes on?’ he asked.
‘To your office, sir!’ I replied with an innocent face as if what

I was about to do was socially accepted.
‘Mchawi wewe. Murogi wewe! Go back to the bathroom, clean up, and run to my office as soon as possible!’ the deputy was infuriated. He walked away with long marauding steps, talking to himself with anger.

I didn’t care because I had just postponed a big beating, at least for a few more minutes or hours. I took my time in the bathroom and took even longer in the dormitory preparing for the outing.
Twenty minutes later, I walked out of the dormitory towards the deputy’s office.

A lot was going through my head, ‘how am I going to receive a beating on the day when I'm supposed to be sitting for my first KCSE paper?’ NO BIG WAY! I concluded. I had to employ all the tricks in my book of treachery to avoid a beating.

I knew it was going to be a heavy merciless beating.
I rushed to the slaughterhouse, as we had nicknamed the deputy’s office... He was on my case as soon as I appeared on his door. He grabbed my hand and pushed me into his office. ‘Go down!’he thundered while groaning with rage.

I stood still, unfazed, and stared daringly into his eyes.
‘Go down!’ he ordered again, louder and angrier.
‘You are not beating me today, sir!’ I objected unexpectedly. The audacity to talk back to the deputy was insane. You had to carry two extra balls even to say hi to him.

‘What did you say?’ he took a labored breath like he had not heard what I had said. I used to be indisciplined sometimes, but telling on the face of the deputy that he can’t punish me was stupid. It was stupid, but stupid people are the bravest.
‘Sir, I have a KCSE paper today!’

I said, my courage growing every second.
‘And so?’ he asked. I didn’t know what to reply. ‘Go down now or I tear your skin apart!’ he said furiously.
‘You see, sir. I need the best conditions to sit for my exams. The Kitale Diocese bishop is in the square to pray for us.

What will you tell him when I fall sick on the day when I am supposed to sit for my first paper? What? What will you say caused my sickness? That you tore my skin?’ I asked daringly. What I meant was I was going to feign sickness if he lay his hands on me, an audacious gamble.

He kept quiet for a moment. I knew I was winning. His silence spoke a lot. ‘You think you are smart? Right?’ he asked. I knew he was about to do something sinister, something out of this world like pull an RKO, pedigree, or spear on me.

‘Make sure that you get a Friends School Kamusinga’s school admission. Get admitted in that school, don’t step back in St. Joseph's Kitale because whatever I will do to you when you come back...get out!’ he chased me out of his office with curses and spats.

My heart lit up. I sighed with ecstasy. My deputy never liked being challenged, but I had not only challenged him once but twice. I had postponed the second beating. As much as I was very happy, I knew hell would still creep in in the evening.

I didn’t care anyway, of importance was that I had escaped a beating twice in the morning. Nothing was as devastating as sitting for an exam on an itching ass. You could not manage an itching brain and ass at the same time.

After the exams, in the evening, we were driven to Kimilili town to take a meal! While inside the hotel, our French teacher excused herself to pick a call from the outside. While she was still outside, a waitress approached us to take our food orders.

The teacher walked back into the hotel after her call. ‘Eat faster guys, the deputy is waiting for us!’ she announced. ‘He has just called!’ At that juncture, I almost lost my appetite at the mention of the deputy principal.
I had his debt, it is me he wanted back ASAP.

Along our way back to school, from Kimilili to Kitale, he barely gave our French teacher’s phone to breathe. At Kamukya, he called, at Sikhendu, at Maliki, at Kiminini, At Kiungani and Kitale Airstrip, he called. Our teacher was so pissed off by his constant phone calls.

She deliberately switched off her phone. Barely two minutes after switching off her phone, the school driver’s phone rang. When he picked it on the louder speaker, the DP asked, ‘Charley, mmefikisha wapi wanafunzi sai?’

When the bus drove into our school compound, a gory scene hit my eyes. A parade of well-bodied male teachers lined themselves in the Square with scary pieces of machinery dangling in their hands.

In front of them, leading the parade, was our DP marching with a diabolic smile on his face.
Once on the ground, in a Chinua Achebe's style, the DP said, 'a man who swallows a whole coconut has immense faith in his an*s!'

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