MY SCHOOL CHRONICLES

...Schooling began. I vividly remember how I cried all the way to school the very first day under the escort of my mother. I was not ready for the new environment due to fear of unknown. It turned out to be a good experience. I met and made new friends. In nursery school I remember we used to carry a piece of exercise book cut halfway. Much of writing was done on red paper and marked with the stick! I mean we used to write on loose soil in our classroom which was purposely set aside for us and our teacher used to mark our work with a stick as soon as possible before time could erase it naturally. Barely before the term lapsed I saw elderly colleagues getting promoted to class one by merely touching their left ear using the right hand passed over their heads. That was the pass mark by then. One could be promoted to class one even after spending a day at nursery school provided his/her hand could pass over their heads successfully. Much of our lower primary studies were done in songs form. One could master wrong things depending how their ears could capture the song. One song which was normally sung at lunch hour before running home stood out and was the most memorable…

Nasikia sauti, nasikia sauti, sauti ya mama, sauti ya mama, sasa ni saa sita, mwalimu kwaheri……

We could sing the song repeatedly ready to dash off immediately the teacher on duty sung..watoto kwaheri as a response to mwalimu kwaheri….

One of the compulsory dressing codes during our time was walking barefooted to school. It was like a natural and community dictate. It was a norm. At some instances, one pupil especially those transferring from town settings to our school could come in shoes. They stood out oddly. This made them seem social misfits. Soon or later they joined our bandwagon by learning to walk barefooted like everyone did. By the way it was punishable to compete with teachers by dorning in shoes unless you had all textbooks to the subjects we were covering. Stumbling on stones and hard soil was a common phenomenon. Almost daily you could spot a pupil hoping over grass in the school fields because of a bleeding toe or a wounded one. You can imagine the walking style. These pupils at times were played on by other mischievous ones who could set a trap by knotting grass in a way that could bring one down tumbling especially at wee hours of the day when all were rushing home or running from recesses. Unfortunately these traps could net even the unintended guests; teachers and visiting parents especially during the opening days when grass was sufficient enough to toggle even an adult.

To be continued...