Don Anstan

me and cuz in mama's cabbage farm

1996. I had just moved to a new school and fighting hard not to wish I was back at the public school. The first day was a climax. The deputy asked me why my last name was woman’s name. I had the desire to point out that on average women form the greater population in any society, but he could have been my great grandfather’s age, I didn’t dare.
I couldn’t find a desk and had to share a bench with another girl who didn’t speak at all, even when the teacher asked her name, I had to look over her book and shout it to the teacher. Then that boy threw my bag on the floor. The floor was dusty, it was a new bag, and by the end of the lessons it was raining as it only does in Endarasha: leopards and foxes. My mother always got me dancing shoes for school, they were flat and smart yes, they also had holes all over.
It was barely the end of the term. We were having our P.E lesson. Mainly running around singing songs, and boys saying which girl needed a brassiere.
The teacher called me over and said- if you don’t stop doing that you’ll have to bring your grandmother.
I had been doing cartwheels, in the middle of a bunch or girls. We didn’t have P.E Kits, we also didn’t have curtains in our dormitories, parallel to the boys’. But he wasn’t talking about the cartwheels, he said- in this school we don’t allow boyfriends and girlfriends- I thought of the boys I hang out with, The wag, Prince Kigano, James and Mbua. Buddies. Boyfriend, ai, no.
So he mentioned the boy’s name,a boy in class eight. I would have liked to see my expression. I was shocked, but was already thinking about the idea, having a boyfriend in class eight would have solved a lot of problems, like having him kick that boy that said I had wincked at the teacher, but not him, aw. So I looked at him wide eyed as he said I was to end the relationship right away. Then he sent me away.
I have always been one for new ideas, and that really got me thinking. I checked the boy out at evening parade, he didn’t look that bad. I asked Shellomith what his other name was. She seemed to know what I was thinking, she said his head was pointed at the back(kisogo). I didn’t want to be the girl with a boyfriend with a kisogo- pointed head.
I never got to hear the end of the story and the teacher didn’t ask again. But in class seven another strange thing happened. I was now boarding. So one afternoon I was cleaning my shoes at the puddle below the tank, we rarely had water. A girl in class eight came and said- what do you think writing letters to my cousin? I feared the girl, she could box you. She never did box anyone, but she wore boy’s shoes and wore a mean look all the time.
I don’t think it was from me, I tried.
Nonsense, I saw the letter, everyone saw the letter.
Oh no, everyone? Everyone in class eight? The girl had a brother in the same class. The cousin was in class five. I was really embarrassed. I even wondered could I have by any slim chance written it in my sleep? A boy in class five? I had a marquee with the words sugar mama going across my mind.
I waited for the authorities to call me in but it never happened. I still wonder who wrote that letter. Kids can be mean.
But it was never all bad, well it was when I was getting canned daily. At one time I had to receive 25 strokes every day, straighten me right up it did, for the time it lasted anyway, then I was back to reading novels during science lessons and getting 32% in Maths.
So last week a friend calls me, happy about a message I sent. I had not written any message but she was to happy, didn’t want to put a pin on the ballon. But I told her later, there was no such message from me. In case she receives another asking for a ransom, you know?