Remembering The Teachers in My Life

INTRODUCTION
Two weeks ago we were celebrating Teacher’s day and I saw many of you writing about it a way of acknowledging the men and women who shaped them to be what they are. I am no exception to such sentiments since being a son of two teachers. Having teachers at home and at school made my life to be quite interesting such that some of my behaviors now are as a result of that environment. For instance walking in an untacked shirt or T-shirt is not an option for me. Communication in slang language like Sheng often gives me problems despite how much I try to keep abreast with it till I have given up.

Now in the village the profession of a teacher especially to the TSC employees to many uninformed villagers especially the school drop outs is a lucrative career in many ways. First of all as a teacher you will never go to school looking shaggy or poorly groomed. Then secondly being the fact that your main duty is imparting knowledge to people’s children. The third fact comes with you being a government employee whereby you have a pay slip at every end month. My mother was often referred to as Madam a term that by then was only awarded to female teachers. My father on the other hand was referred to as Mwalimu and was feared right from school up to home because he was a no nonsense teacher.

PRIMARY SCHOOL
Although he never taught up to the level of a school head teacher he was feared to the core in the whole school more than that any other teacher for his strict standards. When he was on duty no one came late to school because they knew by the time they arrived he would be standing by the gate with a fresh cane from the guava tree. In the morning and in the afternoon pupils always came to school on time. One phrase that my dad like to use when he caught with pupil in the wrong was “rangi ya ukweli”.
“Kwa nini umempiga mwenzako?” he liked to use Swahili as it was sort of an uphill task to many pupils who were only capable of expressing themselves well in kisii language.
“Mwarimu ni yeye ariansa kunichunachuna mazikio” the pupil would defend himself.
“Unasema ukweli?” was the question that followed.
“Ndio ni ukweli hata Mabeya ariona” the pupil would reply.
“Sasa rangi ya ukweli ni gani ndio nikiiona nijue unasema ukweli?” my father would ask this question which often the offender would find it hard to answer and there a beating would land on his buttocks like lightening.
During break time also he would be outside minutes before the bell rang for end of break time and you would see dust rise as everyone rushing back to class except for the nursery kids a group I was in at that particular time. I did not learn in the same school that my father taught after nursery as I was taken a private school very far where my cousin was married.

However I changed school schools when I was in class three to a private school near home that had been set up while I was away. But then I would hear funny stories from some villagers who claimed my father used to beat them in school, “Unajua Onyango alitoroka sule ju babako alikuwa anamchapa kila siku”. One time at night I was coming from night vigil at the neighbourhood I met with a group of village hooligans who beat me up for revenge over being beaten by my father. But I was saved by another group who shown a torch from a distance scattering the group and giving me a chance to run in a different direction. The next day I did not have a reason for the way I was limping but I swore that day I would not ever be out at night again unless with the company of someone else like my father. My father’s warning not to be out till late made sense then. Himself he never walked out late past eight o’clock because he also felt it was dangerous.

The school I joined after coming home was headed by mother because for some reason she had lost her government job and would now be in private schools. The way she beat up my elder brother when he caught him making noise in class was enough to have her sued for violation of child rights. She beat him with rope just outside where the whole school and passersby watched the show for free. One incident that really made me wish the world would just open up and swallow me was when my mother asked a question and our hands were up to answer the question. Now me instead of saying like the rest “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!” I simply said one word that made me a laughing stock for the rest of the lesson.  I found myself call her “Mummy!” I really cried and saw myself as an idiot that day though no one had beaten. But then I didn’t stay in that school for after class five since me and my elder brother were moved to better schools afterwards though still day schooling.
In that school I didn’t have much incidences since I always topped up the class and always received best student prize every parent’s day. One of my neighbors was my teacher there and it was very tricky how to call him when he asked a question in class. One of the pupil made us roar in class when he came to our class after being sent by my neighbor teacher to our class.
“Excuse me sir, Mr. Chief has sent me a duster” the pupil said. All of us who knew the teacher back at home laughed till the teacher in our class got annoyed and threatened to beat us. The pupil had a hard time to explain whom he was referring to at that particular time. All that was done later was that he received a generous amount of strokes in the staffroom from the head teacher.

By the time I was in class six second term I was in another school where I later sat my KCSE exams. It is in this school that my neighbor teacher at home met me again.  My mother too joined me there and was soon crowned as the head teacher again. This school was no joke as it’s standards were far much reaching beyond other schools in the whole district despite being a day school. By class eight we were found ourselves in boarding something that had been like would never happen to me. Being a last boarn fighting with homesickness was no joke. Every day I would go to check on my mum as soon as preps were over just to ask for five or ten shillings to buy maandazi for breakfast. Whistling with porridge from Monday through Friday was sort of a punishment whenever I remembered that at home we could take tea with ripe bananas or ugali left overs. The school manager used to be a teacher before he started the school and from time to time he would come to teach us a few English special lessons over the weekend and we loved it. But the strokes of canes he gave us when he called the group of top ten students when we failed to keep our own records were memorable since he use bamboo sticks.
The Swahili teacher whom I would not forget his excellent teaching to us from misamiati to insha was such a friend only if you passed his subject like I always did. I would say his life improved greatly after he joined our school was an exceptional teacher. He taught Swahili till when he spoke English it was like an illiterate person trying to communicate in a foreign language. He used to record sessions of Bahari ya Lugha which used to air on Radio. Sometimes I used to think he was a cousin to Ustadhi Wallah.

But then the English teacher was hard on me for my handwriting even when I did my best. But in CRE where he was the teacher too he loved how I used my small King James Version bible to find verses quickly than those with Good News Bibles. Him being the deputy head teacher made him double up as the disciplinary master beating pupils that he came across on the wrong side whenever wherever. How could I forget when he beat me up over simply walking past the gate to buy medicine which I greatly needed when the gate man would not help simply because he didn’t think I really needed it. That day I cried like I was in a funeral and my mother who knew my voice came to my aid. She knew I was sick and had given me the money that I used to purchase the medicine that I was being beaten for. When I narrated to her what had transpired she went for the culprit wherever he was teaching at that time breathing fire and brimstones. A bitter exchange of words ensued till the deputy came to apologize to me where I was sited in the shade wiping my tears.

SECONDARY SCHOOL
The school I joined while in my form one was a provincial one and the vernacular language of the neighborhood there really influenced a lot of what was joked on inside the school. You have no idea what a luo words made to sound English would really look scary to you from other community and since you could not find in the dictionary and the one who used was a senior student you ended thinking it is in the form three or form four syllabuses.

“Fellow dorm mates I want to jamboreal something here that has been disturbing me for a long time. This goes to all the jomobets of kijiji” a senior would say during weekly dormitory assemblies that were hosted on Tuesday. It would take you an entire year to know jamboreal is a fusion of jambo a Swahili word and real an English word meaning I want to talk of a real thing. A word like jomobets was purely a luo word added letter ‘s’ at the end but meant those who stay at a place. So when you were cained in the English lesson for not using English language to express yourself you would not understand at all. The clever guys kept quite all the time because they feared to become culprits.

Now I will not dwell on bullying or monorisation because that is a story of another day but I will tell you freely that this activity could make you become a culprit easily when you were confronted with a hard situation. Like one time the teacher on duty among other notable teachers had a nickname that stuck more than his real name. Every time he spoke at the assembly he never failed to mention the name of our school in every paragraph or sentence, “As a student of Agoro Sare you should not forget the school motto at all times. You are to labour for success while at Agoro Sare High school. You realize Agoro Sare is not just common school around here. It is in Agoro Sare where we have unique units like drawing and design, art and design, music, French and so forth.” That was Mr. Agoro Sare whom till the day I left that school I never got to know his real name even though one day he beat me for calling him his name.
“Young man whom do you want to see?” one teacher asked me one day as I stood outside the staffroom waiting to see the teacher on duty to be written a leave out chit.
“The teacher on duty sir” I replied.
“What is his name?” the teacher went on.
“Mr. Agoro Sare” I replied.
“Ha ha ha you are in Agoro Sare and you want Mr. Agoro Sare!” the teacher said busting out laughing. Off course I got to see Mr. Agoro Sare and get a leave out chit but I got three hard strokes of cane.
Another teacher that was popular by the nickname was the deputy principal. Please just understand that I still don’t remember his real name though I vividly remember the name of the principal. Now the deputy because he kept a forest of his beards and sideburns he was nicknamed Mr. Oyier. Dare you pronounce that name near the staffroom or him and you will find what you were looking for. He was one teacher that even the form four that tormented us feared. When he patrolled the compound at odd times he often got a lot of culprits to give suspension. One time I came from home where I had gone to kill homesickness happy to find one stubborn form four we used to call damba had been suspended for not only for using mother tongue but for insulting Mr. Oyier. Damba and his three friends had been found in kijiji during class time. When Mr. Oyier banged the door he got insults of “Ngony’ meru!” in return.

Joining the art and design class had equipped me with skills to draw calligraphy which was an exceptional ingredient in a love letter. Speaking of love letters how could I forget when that Madam who taught us Swahili found one of my classmates drafting a love letter? I used to love the way madam spoke Swahili so fluently. She reminded me of my mum because my mum too was a Swahili teacher. When she spoke the way she moved her lips it was like Swahili was such a sweet thing to say. She spoke carefully all the time and with some dominance like she was born at the coast or in Tanzania.

Now apparently in one of the Swahili lessons someone was having a revised standard bible under the desk on his laps where he was picking some verses from the book of Songs of Solomon to spice up a love letter. “Your neck is like the tower of David built in rows of stone, Your two breasts are like two fawns, You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” Were just some of the lines madam found in the letter my short classmate was drafting. That was the day I knew the Bible not had poems but love letters in it. I had told my friend that I knew some pickup likes and love lines that I could offer him at a price because I got them when people approached me to draft letters for them. Then on the envelope I would write “Swing it to the queen of my heart.”

I never finished my form two in that school because the temptation of becoming a thief was so great I tell you. How could I be whistling and taking ndufya for a whole month when my neighbor had sugar and cocoa that he used on his porridge escorting it with maandazi on a daily basis. Myself I only took a decent breakfast when I got a job to do. I joined a day school where things were better for me by far. I was no longer homesick and always ate to my full as I left home and when I came back in the evening. At school the lunch which we ate there was very generous and the only issue was farting on hot afternoon after taking ugali beans.

Now there the deputy principal who later became the principal when I was in form three was one teacher you could not finish schooling there without brushing shoulders with. He was the Kiswahili teacher as well as Fasihi teacher. Many of those who did their KCSE between 2005 and 2010 must have done Kifo Kisimani I as a set book. Our principal since he was very dictatorial he ended up being nicknamed as Mutemi Bokono who was the antagonist in that play. I loved the way he talked of the scenes in that book like he lived right inside there. He made you see the real picture of Nyalwe, Mwelusi, Balu and so many people there. “Leo ni siku ya wamama na vikapu, samahani ni neno geni kwa Mutemi, jua lina bahati sana mutemi hawezi kulitesa.”
Mathematics and geography were dreaded subjects if your class was allocated the Mr. TGB the deputy. He was tall with generous raised behind which made him stand out from the rest of other male teachers. He spoke fluent English and if he found you in mistake dare you argue with him in English and you would “see fire without smoke”. If he called you “my friend” just know you were in for it but if he called you by name you were safe. To outdo him when in a mistake use Swahili because Swahili was legal in the school and you win the case.
“My friend why are you late?” he would ask.
“Mwalimu kulikuwa na tatizo la usafiri, daladala lilikamatwa na afisa wa trafiki nilipoliabiri” I would say.
“Oh you are late because …. Eeee … there was aaaa….. problem with transport ….” He would be translating. Then he would end up laughing at himself and he would tell you to go to class you are safe. But in class when he came in be it Maths or Geography just cooperate either by copying and doing the sums if it was Maths lesson or write the notes if it was Geography. When he gave you assignment you would be safe if you not only did and submitted in time but if you got 75% in the whole exercise.

Every morning it was dubbing time because if he gave a simple sum in class like a 2 by 2 matrix in class the homework would involve a 3 by 3 matrix. So the class secretary being very bright he was always the first to finish the sums early in the morning and start collecting them so he could take them to the teacher’s desk before 7 o’clock. So if you arrived late and you had unfinished homework you knew your back would dance to the music of the blackboard ruler during maths lesson. Those who knew they had a lot of sins they dressed with sweaters inside their shirts in preparation. Sins included not submitting assignments, unfinished work, failing more than 50%, dubbing your neighbour’s work, dirty work. Off course to Mr. TGB there was no sin because it was either in the scientific calculator or log table.
“My friend nataka hiyo nyama!” that was what you got when you did not lie on your desk to let him beat your back.
.
Then my chemistry teacher a slender lady whose son was my classmate their taught chemistry off head like she was born with it. When we failed her subject which was seldom she took a whole lesson to preach to us since she was a Mama Dorcas in the SDA. But then the biology teacher was hard on those who could not draw diagrams properly and have organized notes. Especially the drawing the cell, dna, reproductive system, digestive system my friend you would find his lesson hell on earth.

If the business studies lesson ended without you laughing then you needed to see a psychtrist soon. The business teacher was a comedian and business man in one package. He was not as boring as another madam that used to teach us Kiswahili at times whom we used to think was his girlfriend. The two always left the school at the same time. Now this madam you would think she was not very professional since it was like she would be absent minded when in class. It was like she talked to herself never caring those that murmured in her class.

Before I finish narrating about my teachers experience I will not fail to talk of the English teacher who was a drama patron, and also constituency official which made him virtual everywhere at any time. He came to school when he had a lesson on the government motor cycle that was assigned to him. At times he the CDF land cruiser came for him in the school and soon you would see him gone. One thing that I loved him for was how he made us understand that the strongest man in the world is he who stands alone as depicted in Henrick Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. Peter Stockman was his favourite character as he fought the dirty sewage pipes saga in the town that his brother was the mayor. Together with Petra her daughter and teacher, wife and kids they stood out for the truth. If your Fasihi and Literature teacher never made you memorise the setbooks like us go for a fee refund.

Some of you argue that some things learnt in mathematics wasted your time. That the only thing you apply in your daily life is addition and subtraction. You fail to see yourself using matrices to evade someone who lent you money. You fail to see how you multiply something that happens three times to every day. You can’t see yourself dividing your time and resources amongst your girlfriends and boyfriends. You can see yourself using angles to peep into your neighbor’s phone when they are not seeing. All teachers I salute you!!!