8-4-4 How it nearly ruined us had we let it, and the teachers who made it worth the while.

Mr. Karimi

All I remember of Mr. Karimi was that he wore a clean shirt every day, and a tie I think. I don’t remember his face, but I remember his voice.

He was a self made comedian during parade, making us in lower class laugh but the class eight gimlet eyed teenagers would be very silent when he cracked jokes. I guess they weren’t really jokes.

He said one day; ‘If you don’t pass your KCPE this time, don’t think you can come in January
next year and expect to be taken back. No, We shall just give you a bowl to cry in. You can fill it with your tears but we’ll give you another one, then you can go home after that.’ The school had some faded cream and yellow bowls to eat Githeri from.

There was an episode when girls in the school started to get pregnant immediately after  class eight and other such scandals because one Monday he came and said.

‘Sooo, Sundays are your outing days eh? Someone brings you Mũtungo(boiled maize) and Tropical (mints) and you walk hand in hand up the hill kwa Amos -Kwa Amos was some hilly woods that were think with cedars and cypress, with thick ferns covering the underground. There was also a very clear stream running between the hills-

‘He says “I love you.”
You say, “Too much.”
It becomes a song I love you, too much, I love you, too much’

And Mr.Karimi was swinging his backside from side to side. It was hilarious.

It was 1992 and I still strongly believed boys were disgusting. I walked around without a petticoat and didn’t know it, until one Saturday morning  cũcũ asked me to put on that orange dress that was my Sunday best and said we were going to Endarasha.

We walked into a shop and she asked for tũmithi twa tũirĩtu. The woman behind the counter took a long pole with a hook on its end and pulled down a black cotton petticoat from the school uniforms section.

This shop looks like Garissa Lodge, Bata,Kalu works and Twiga textiles had a collision, apart from the fact  that it’s only one small room with a tiny window, very tiny window that is mostly a peep hole.
My cũcũ is a regular customer here. Her women’s chama also buys house ware from here. The woman then pulls down a green half petticoat.

‘These are popular for their big zigzag lace.’ She informs us.
Cũcũ is not about to cater for such fancies. She settles for a black full body one with just a slither of lace.
On our way home we pass by a tailor’s house and cũcũ shows her the petticoat and orders a similar one from the woman. This one will be cheaper; this tailor makes all my dresses, even my underwear from the bits that remain from the dress fabrics, even though it’s kinda rough.

Kumbe Mr. Karĩmi had sent word to cũcũ  that the girl needs a kamisi. The following year, he is also sees to it that my little cousin has been bought tũraba (Ngoma Bata canvas shoes). I suppose she might have been wearing gumboots or pumps to school.

I remembered him today as I stood beside my clothes’ closet trying to decide if to wear a kamisi or just stockings. I am prudish. I always wear one imagining I might bump into  Mr Karimi in town and he might discover I am not wearing a kamisi and he might call up cũcũ  to say I’ve become a bad girl, walking around kamisiless, and cũcũ  fearing any more recriminations from the head master might send me one of hers by 2NK Matatus, or have one made for me.

In primary school ,some teachers relished in embarrassing kids
-come here, you silly boy and tell your mother to stop shaving your head using scissors, a haircut is five shillings only-
Mr. Karĩmi was different, he was not out to embarrass anybody.
I saw  Mr. Karĩmi at my best friend’s brother’s burial. He remembered me and said I had really grown up,I was in form 1.

I wonder if he still teaches.

embracing vulnerability- Phase 1

Few days ago I had a full minute of clear vision where it occurred to me in such distinct clarity that I am no longer a child needing to please every breathing thing on a 10,000km radius. I have grown into a human being that actually can make decisions and stick by them regardless of who thinks it's another mad idea. Grieving clears vision.

 It's when you are feeling lost and when your bottom falls that you know exactly who matters. And it's mostly people who call you up and immediately tell you they are coming over coz you are you sure you are okay? And sit with you listening to winding tales of- how you feel like you never catch a break- but they remind you that you have actually caught many breaks in your life, it's just that now they fade in the magnitude of the floods of feelings that overwhelm you but once all is over you will be okay but it's okay cry if you want to. And what do you mean you ate a banana this morning!!!!

Gosh I fear such punctuation, it send me right out of the house for groceries. And go to sleep now, Cecilia you need to be alert tomorrow.
People who remind you that life is not as we expect it to be  but it's no reason not to eat good food, go out dancing and wear a mini skirt if that's what you want to wear.
And then I gave up the fear of letting to. The fear of the unknown. The fear of the 1001 unmade decisions and what ifs that would be affected by that one decision you haven't made.
I crumbled. I think.

no complications

 
I want to love
Not like our perfectionist working class parents
But like our primary school drop out cousins to our mothers
who gently cared and cheered us on,
Who dabbed our tear stained cheeks with warmed face towels
 as they sang nursery rhymes in their language.

I want to love,
not like our sophisticated older sisters
but like our class seven classmates from a small town
They shared their combs and brushes took us out of homesickness
listened to our heartbreak and gave comfort

I want to love
Not like the mean spirited sod I've been
I guess I want to love unselfishly
I guess I can love with less emotion
to be depended upon and not run away at will.

 

A GRIEVING MANUAL FOR KYUKS

Because I am Ngugi wa Thiong’o or I have become Chinua Achebe? Or maybe I have risen in ranks to become the millennial version of Barbara Kimenye without knowing.

On further deep retrospect and many days of self appraisal, I have come to a conclusion that no one should be expected to write a grieving manual. Not for Kyuks, nor for Germans. Just leave grieve alone and let everybody do as they wish. If anyone needs help let them speak to a psychiatrist or to their local priest.

If that is not enough, run along and read this post by BikoZulu. It’s the closest one can get to understanding how Kuyks grieve and why I initially thought I could create a manual for them and weeks upon weeks as I watered the plants, played with the cat, crushed garlic to sooth the never ending 2018 flu, the story ran through my mind in different angles. 

I had my bullet points, a.k.a vidokezo below. But like in school when the Kiswahili teacher would go round the room checking each one’s insha paper to see that you spent five minutes writing down, vidokezo, the story died before it began.

1. Acknowledge the sorrow death brings with it.

2. Allow yourself to grief, stoicism is overrated, Jesus wept. 

3.Sit down and stop planning the tea, cabbage, mikate, mukimo.

4.Why do you need to dig up those old pictures of when I was a girl with snot in my face, scan them and create a brochure?

5. Give comfort to those who mourn, stop telling them wiyumiririe, wiyumiririe kitu gani. I want to roll on the floor and loose my decency if that will get the sad out of my chest.

 oh and No.6. No one owns grief. If I'm sobbing at my neighbour's cousin's funeral, let me be. 

So for now I don’t have anything. The task was too huge. Let me be satisfied writing about women and men, plants and cats and once in a while I might get a real brilliant shot of genius and write a how to article.

Grieving 101

I’ve been feeling like crap.

Yeah.

But that is not something you go round telling people. You smile and cheer at the good things and then go home and wonder where you got the energy to work, to talk, to even tell funny stories to people coz all you want to do now is knock yourself out and not think about all the things that are bugging you. And then you realise that actually there is a high power holding up your spine, keeping your person from collapsing into a pile of manure.

My friend texted me to ask- how are you, sorry I don’t ask but are you okay?-  I explained that  between experiencing three deaths in two weeks and catching a bacteria infection, I’m derailed but not too bad. She said that would put her out too.

 When I looked at the conversation it became clear that I have been grieving. Grieving the Kikuyu way. Stoically, tight lipped and dry eyed. 

There are people on this earth that get under your skin a few minutes after you meet them. Genuine people that wear no masks. Simple people that are not trying to be something they are not. Hard working people that haven’t figured out life yet, but are happy to share the few lessons they’ve learned with you.

I will not talk about all three people, they all had one thing in common-  struggling with a health condition – but that didn’t stop them from living life the best way they could. Dominic, my colleague and an artist, and Mama Shiru, the woman that has been looking after my grandmother for the last two years. The woman that helped restore our dog Tom’s leg after our insane neighbor slashed it. I will talk about my friend Millie.

Millie, when we first met I thought, ‘what a sophisticated woman, I wish we could be friends.’  She was a friend of my close friend. So when she actually sort me out and made friends, I was very happy.

Two things I remember about her is how one time she called me and explained a disappointment she had experienced. We talked for hours, then she said ‘I really appreciate how your patiently listened to me.’ All I did was listen, but I came to respect her very much because I am the complete opposite. I don’t talk about my disappointments. They just eat me up and make me lose trust in people.

Whenever  I met Millie with her friends, she would parade me in front of her very accomplished and fine friends and tell them, ‘this girl is doing this and that and she is so amazing in many ways.’ I would feel like I didn’t deserve all the praise and attention. But now when I think about it, how many people, better than you in many ways will stoop down to you level and see the little bits of positive things in you? I can count them in one hand , and two of them are not human.

The last time I visited her, she had found me, told me, ‘you are coming home with me.’ We bought drinks, warmed food and talked for hours. In the morning after I had my bath she told me, ‘I want to tell you something, don’t take it the wrong way please. When you share wash basins, remember always to clean them out before pouring in your bath water. Coz, really you can’t be sure if the person before you cleaned it out.’ I appreciated that lesson, simple but practical.

I was sad, but I also know that God is not unrighteous to forget the things these people did with their lives. I hope to see them again in future.

Next: A grieving manual for Kyuks, before Stoicism kills us all.