03/04/2024
THE PROMISE
_____________________ It is the second year of high school and the first has just been a bliss. Hello. I’ve been in drama in the first year of high school and also music. I have seniors all the way from fourth form down to form two who protect and are happy with me in their company. So second year is here and the stakes are even higher. I am a barber by the weekend and a loaf selling merchant by the evenings. Above that I’m one of the only two dancers in the official school band. Over and above that I’m in the scouting movement. As a bonus, I’m included in the cheering squad so even when I’m ZERO into sports, I’m still there when they win and when they lose. By now this should tell you… you are right… I’m a busy boy.
So I’ve been going out almost on every occasion. Out there is a silent conquest between boys. Having a girl in every girls’ school is pride, and the stars seem aligned in my favor. I’m doing very well in that sector and so every Friday (not sure) dinner time in the dining hall, letters received are announced for students to pick from the Captain. I’m receiving many quite often, some guys are jealous. One senior has a name Ciira, which is close to mine and on occasions he appropriates my letters. I have to repeatedly confront him, to hand them over or open while I’m there so we know whether they are his or mine and to his embarrassment, they are mine. Anyway so I inform my people to include Junior at the end of the name Chirah, just to be clear. Long story short, I’m happening.
Second form, second term and BOOM 💥! It’s dusk and everyone is holding on to their plates waiting for the dining hall bell to go so we can go serve. For some reason today the bell is late and most students are out on the streets between the dormitories and the dining hall. All of a sudden, I hear loud bangs, screams, whistles and catch a glimpse of masked individuals chasing everyone and it is helter-skelter. I have no idea what’s happening, don’t ask me about the plates or anything but we are all chased towards the school playing field, in the opposite direction. I’m terrified. To be honest, I have no idea what transpires but we are to rise again and head for the gate. It is here that my cousin in the third form who was close by the whole time tells me it is a strike. My legs are weak with fear. As we approach the classrooms and administration block, the chaos erupt and glass windows are shattered with stones, we can hear chants and screams from down the dining hall juxtaposed with more glass shattering as windows are pelted with rocks. In the melee, we are just a mass being driven out like sheep and out the gate we go. A lot happens between the gate and when we return to school which I shall not go into here, because I wanna go to THE PROMISE real quick.
So back in school, as we approach we are classified. For some reason I’m in the category of suspected ring leaders!!!! As routine, I’m also given a questionnaire to write names of who I think could have been involved. Of course I don’t have a clue so I can’t say a thing. That adds to my woes and I’m suspended alongside other ‘bad boys’ one for covering up and two for having been listed as a suspect. Popularity is not necessarily good fame. For two weeks I’m in the village. All other students are in school. Parents out there won’t even say hello, because allegedly I’m a ‘criminal’ who led a strike in school. 🤦🏾♂️. I lapse my suspension and return to school. Capital punishment of 6 strokes of the cane (which also goes on record) is passed and with a stern warning, I’m allowed back in school.
Now my life is not ordinary because some fellow students don’t consider me good company while some teachers don’t like me. Prefects have me on their speed dial whenever there is a case of indiscipline especially noise-making that at one time, while home unwell, my name was on the Friday call out of wrong doers to be paraded in front of other students. I wasn’t even in school. Anyway, school goes on.
Third term, comes and KABOOM 💥💥 !!! There is another strike. Yet again this catches me by surprise. I’m less afraid but unaware of where to be. So I just follow the crowd. We are to walk about 45 kilometers to the Provincial Education Office to present our grievances, a journey that was treacherous, dangerous and painful. I again won’t go deep. I need to go back to THE PROMISE real quick. So as usual after a strike everyone is on suspension until recalled. I’m again in the village, and Mbeere has condemned me. Incidentally at this time a few other schools are also on strike and at least I have a cousin of mine home on suspension. We hang out a lot, like rogue buffalos whom even our own parents appear to have no love for. How do you explain that we would no longer be invited to eat anything prepared and if we were to eat we had to figure it out ourselves, and you should know here I’m a Mbeere and we are generally not allowed in the kitchen once you have faced the knife!! I suspect the apparent neglect at this point hardens us (childhood trauma) and we actually start becoming rogue.
There is a perennial water shortage in arid Mbeere and the nearby Secondary school has a shortage. Students therefore have to go up the hills at some well to fetch water in jerrycans. It is at this time while we are out on suspension that we force a group of returning students to put down their water cans and kneel down. Just for fun. (May God forgive us). I shall not go into the details of how this unfolded but I can declare here that when we were called to the school to ‘meet’ the Principal, I left that office saved, having given my life to Jesus Christ and with a testimony, which I also repeated in church the following Sunday. I’d never been hit so hard as to see stars ✨ during the day. I promised myself on that day never to ever get myself in such a stupid mess again. I saw light!!! Yes, Steve Ndegwa, I also saw light, from stars. I prayed hardest during this time and believed God. I knew He wouldn’t let me suffer for mistakes I had never committed in the first place. I treated this as a consequence of a first mess which had nothing to do with me but was remorseful for the offending those students.
The letter inviting students back arrives but in my case I have to remain for a further two weeks, having been suspended for participating in a strike. Again!! Surely! Try it with an accent as Pastor Steve urged us to in church today… like really? This was unbelievable. My cousin is back to their school, I’m left home alone, condemned again by the community. Sources inform me that a message from my maternal grandfather Kamweti instructing that I be treated well, had arrived at my mum’s desk. It said he had said that I’m born after my paternal grandfather who was a leader and that whenever something happened in a group leaders get noticed so kids could have just mentioned my name for that. He clearly was the only one apart from me who had understood the memo perfectly.
The two weeks lapse and my mum takes me back to school. To my astonishment the only conversation we are to have is of me accepting a capital punishment again. 6 strokes of the cane and a physical one, digging up a tree stump, which I decline as I knew I was innocent. The singular effect of this decision is that we have to exit the school, and when I’ve determined that I’d still wish to continue studying in that school, I can return. I take that offer. As we approach the gate, my mum is angry 😡 and in a fuming tone declares
“CHIRAH!”
(Whenever a conversation would start with the calling of my name, hell had broken loose and was at the doorstep, visiting. So I knew it was about to go down. Caution: You don’t want to try my mum, when you mess up, she treats you the way she would an attacker trying to hurt you).
“Listen and listen good.” She continued. “Dare you step outside that gate with me. If you do, from right then, know that I’ve washed you off of my hands so be figuring out where you will go because it will not be in my compound!”
Avaita!
“Did you hear me?” Then she repeats it and I know she means it.
So I stop. Without a conversation we by telepathy agree to go back. I take the ‘msita’ as we called the 6 canes capital punishment so I can continue with school. But this time I made to sign somewhere that the punishment comes with a last warning clause and that if I’m to ever be caught with any case of indiscipline even as light as making noise in class, I would be expelled ‘for G’. I have no choice so I take it. When it is all done, she tell me that when schools close, a transfer to a different school can be considered.
My life is a mess from that moment on. I literally walk on eggshells every day in school and I exclud myself in very many ways to avoid getting caught on the wrong side of things. But I know it’s only a matter of time, so I take it all in. As school closes, I take most of my stuff home believing we would find another school. It doesn’t happen.
Third year opening day is here, I’m angry at my parents that I have to go back to the same school with a noose over my head. Not to add the meager pocket money which had been slashed I believe in an attempt to defund me so as to curtail my activities in school. I hatch a plan. Be absent as much as I can so as not to be within the school to be caught in some type of a mess. With the gang of those going through my kind of hardships, we had to find a way to stay away from school authorities as much as we could. And so, every two or so weeks, I’d “fall sick” and obtain a school leave out sheet to go to the health center. Somehow I’m able to obtain repeat injections of three to four days back to back, (don’t ask me how and whether or not they would ever be administered) but we (I) are literally out of school almost all the time. So everything runs smoothly for the most part, sick by the day but well in the evenings and back in time for drama rehearsals because I’m in the cast again. Yay😀! This time we make it all the way to the national level. Wapi?
Menengai High School 1993.
Wueh! Kwani I had ever seen “cham”?. No. That means chang’aa in case you are just joining us. Do I really go in here, detail? No! Let me not as I need to go back to THE PROMISE real quick. We had performed our school script very well in the hall but were to make real life drama out in the fields, so crazy that we had to be removed from the area, and even taken out of the 7 day camp prematurely. Story for another day.
You might know that these national festivals happen in the last week of the first term so on our way back, I drop off in Nairobi to go to my father’s house. I spend two weeks then down to the village.
By the last weekend before schools reopen for the second term, my dad comes down to the village and at a point I spot an envelop in his possession that bears the school print address. I’m not new to those by now. I also know what I did last summer. I’m also aware I have an expulsion tag over my head. I sneak in real quick and read it, put it back in pretend all is well. I join my sisters to wash clothes ahead of the upcoming opening day but knowing too well I’d not be opening .You see while away on holidays, my suspension was effected. I would stay away from school for a week then return to “have my case determined by the board of school management”. I of course know it is over. On this last Sunday, in the evening, my dad has assembled a group of his church friends (Wazee wa kanisa) and as I get into the compound I’m summoned. The letter is read openly then it is passed around to the elders, then I’m asked if I know anything about being drunk and causing drama in Menengai High School. I deny. I’m lectured in turns for hours, each elder referring to the Bible, reading a verse then coming back to me and the next one doing the same. They are in pain. I feel the pain. I see my dad is in pain. My mum is frustrated. Quiet. Just looking blankly in the distance, perhaps thinking I must have made her look like a failure. I’m broken. 😞
Before they pray to leave I ask to say something and declare that what was in the letter was true. I drank. I also state that I did it because I din’t want to ever go back to that school again. You should have heard the silence. With that stroke, I was officially a SCHOOL DROP OUT.
The week is over and I reluctantly agree to go to school to hear what they would say. This time for the first time, all others having been by my mum, I’m accompanied by my dad. He’ll been doing the honors. Just to be sure of my moves, I’ve not brought anything with me other than the school uniform I’m wearing. We get there and I’m facing off with the Principal trying to maturely explain where all the mess begun and why I should never have been suspended in the very first place but he thinks I’m disrespectful and wants to discipline me before we can proceed. I’m not in the mood for any canes today so I’m walking out as the deputy principal is trying to catch me. I was too fast for them. I grab a rock outside and threaten to unleash it on anyone who dares touch me.
School is over. Yes it is. 😢
I stayed home. I became a villager, a young formerly promising boy, who had been afforded the luxury of being taken to a boarding primary school now turned a reject who no one cared about.
I prayed hard and asked God many questions. My dad didn’t want me near him in the city. My mum kept to her program. I was ‘officially’ branded a bad influence and the community would rather avoid me. I was alone in the wilderness. I started to make bricks to build my own house and start out at life. I begun secretly burning and selling charcoal to the shopkeepers at the nearby shopping center so as to have some income. In the nights, I’d go back to ask God more questions about what all that good He had lined up for me was about from when I would top in my class through primary school or at least not fall below position 6 altogether. What it was He had made me envision becoming a great example to the community, even to the point of telling my mum one time that one day I’d be in one of those airplanes that flew very high over our village and I’d go to Japan. I’d promised her that I’d study so hard that I’d speak great English so that I’d become a manager... wear suits with button up shirts and all.
Today at Jubilee Covenant Center, Kent, USA, when we stood up for the reading of the word of God, it centered on the learnings from the book of Genesis Chapter 28. Jacob is out there, running away, alone, tired, he decides to take a nap. In the discomfort of the wilderness where the only thing he can use for a pillow is a stone, it is here where in a dream he is reminded about THE PROMISE God had made to Abraham. And as I walk into my house was a reflection on that dark patch in my life when I nearly dropped out of school. Or dropped for a bit actually. It was only by sheer divine connection (I reserve that story another day) that Mr Banda John (I owe you) came along, found me a new school and I went and complete my high school studies and performed very well. Today, I revisited THE PROMISE. God is a keeper. I strongly recommend you watch the sermon via https://www.facebook.com/share/v/B3FufmUSDAcyKTdx/?mibextid=WC7FNe
