High school opening day wasn’t exactly a spree for hormone ravaged young adults back in the day. My baby cousin tells me it isn’t exciting now. You see, we got to question the meaning of life during this time. Was all this truly necessary? Your ancestor didn’t go to school and yet he still managed to coerce and marry your female ancestor who gave birth to all your moronic clan. Surely illiteracy couldn’t be that bad. But in the end, the world wants you in school and the world always wins. That’s just the way things are so off you go.
In Oriwo Boys my opening days were an exception though. While I can’t say they were exciting, they weren’t too bad either. It was like vinegar with a tinge of sugar. Sour but still sweet.
Hereunder are a few of the most memorable moments;
First. Term one opening day. Just the other year we had been form ones, monos, amono nyochero, confused form one, school wheelbarrows. Now we were form twos and excited to be so elevated. No more mopping DH. We could finally have a voice however petite on the happenings in the school. And so Nathaniel Oloo brought a little something from home. Something to help us celebrate. Care to make an educated guess? I’m joking, you can’t. Well he carried fried tomatoes in a kasuku tin. Now if you went to group of schools you may not relate but this was actually better than it sounds. Except we did not know it wouldn’t be edible after a day. I kept it safe in my box and the next day, not even the African teenage boys with an appetite slightly above that of a mongrel dog could partake. In tears we threw it away.
Second. Still in form two around term two or three I’m not sure. We had developed this habit of intentionally arriving to school very late much to the displeasure of Bula, the principal. We would simply sit around some center called Kadel watching a movie, some playing cards or just bantering till 7pm when we would make our way to school. Normally nothing ever happened since the watchmen; afraid of the crowd would simply let us in. This day was no normal day though. Bula had plans and not good ones. We arrived to find Bula and all members of the teaching fraternity, cooks and even donkeys (yeah, we had donkeys in Oriwo) waiting for us by the gate. And they were not happy.
Bula isn’t quite a lovely person to look at even when he’s smiling and when he’s angry, you would rather tame a lion than stare at Bula in the eye. Our entourage was led to the Chemistry lab which wasn’t even large enough to hold us all comfortably. The doors were locked from outside and windows left open with watchmen instructed to castrate anyone who even thought of attempting to escape. Let’s just say we spent the night standing on each other’s toes while being kissed and caressed by mosquitoes all through. And when we thought that was worse, we had to stay in that lab through the next morning till midday, hungry, bonk and very thirsty. People who have been in Nyati house during Moi’s era have nothing on us by the way.
Third. In form three. We had been given a weekend half term. CBC kids those days half term wasn’t a one week event. So we left school on Thursday and was expected back to school on Tuesday. In Oriwo half term wasn’t compulsory bytheway. So Shem Ojijo and I went home and Shem Ojijo still and I found ourselves back to school on Saturday before the half term could end. We’d created our very own opening day thanks to too much chores that needed doing at home and not enough food to keep fast blood boys happy and excited as Akuba our governor would have wanted. In school though, during mealtime you could always go for second, third or fourth helping. There were no chores and since it was halfterm, boys just ate and watched movies all day and night. So we went back to school to eat and live happily ever after.
TONNY OGWA
Besides studying computer science at kisii university, Tonny Ogwa is a contributing writer for a number of publications. When he is not writing, he is googling his name because he is always busy
