GEN X, Which HighSchool did you go to?

 When I was in Primary school, I would hear my uncl a and aunties talking about the hi highschools they had been to, and the once they admired.

Mary Leakey,  Kangūbiri, South Tetu girls Limuru Girls, Loreto Limuru, Kagumo boys, Njiiris, Tūmūtūmū, Alliance Girls (which was kinda out of reach ) but there was always BG to aim for.

You knew after that you would go to Nairobi University, or KU if you wanted to to be a teacher in future.

Life after highschool  didn't matter so much to me because I knew O was gonna get into Kenya School of Journalism, the cut line was a C, and I was so sure of it I knew I didn't have to study Chemistry too much.

At that  time Maseno University offered a single course in Mass Communication.

But I wasn't gonna be allowed to go to Western Kenya, not with my history of Malaria.

Anyway, that's a lot of water under the bridge and the purpose of the post wasn't. Even about Universities.

It was just a realization I had yesterday.

I have sat through a familiar discussion too often, where one person wants to talk about the superiority of the school the attended.

So I went to BG and I have friends that went to Mang'u, Nyeri High, Loreto girls and when we reminisce about highschool, it's about teachers we had nicknamed or the punishments we scored.

Never have we sat to compare school facilities. And apart from the schools like Loreto that had a swimming pool, everything else was standard.

But then I find myself in this group of acquaintances and  the girl finds a way to ask : where did you do you chemistry lessons? And someone from the group will answer, In classroom, unless we had practicals then we'd have them in the lab.

In the lab? You only had a lab?

Yes we had a lab, 

Only one? Us we had a lab for each lesson, Chemistry lab, Biology Lab, Physics Lab

Oh watu wa group of schools

She smiles contentedly 

Na wewe Cecilia?

Oh, we had labs

And I leave it at that because I don't get it, and I don't want to get involved.

But after hearing this over three times, I can only exit the room before I say something nasty.

I found myself in that so called  group of schools and couldn't believe how dusty it is., even the said labs are broken down with missing taps.

How can I participate in the discussion now with the knowledge I have, when I imagine the pristrine condition of the Music Rooms, the Computer Labs, The huge  Library, the Agriculture Labs , the chemistry lab 1 and 2, physics lab 1 and 2 enormous Homescience fitted with kitchen equipment on one room, and Sewing machines in the next room, enough to sit 60 girls at the same time?

And I finally understood why  the school placement  was a problem last year. When they said a student can be placed in any school within any county, I now get it why Central had a problem. Government Schools in Kiambu, Nyandarua, Othaya and Nyeri have long been standardized, and it wasn't 100% government funding. It was community efforts. Every few years a school will have a fundraisers.

And parents of the  fourth year class  would be allocated a certain amount to to leave a legacy for the  generations behind.

In my years at BG, there were two projects, a fundraiser where President Moi was the Guest of honour to build and stock  a modern  Library and in our fourth year, our parents paid a set amount each for a new school bus. 

I guess, she hasn't met someone from Central.

Home is not the place I leave but the one I come back to

I don't know exactly when but it had to be after mother's passing when it hit me that so many strings had been severed with that one death.

Before, I had always felt that I was being pulled in different directions.
Now it seemed very clear that I should have just focused on one direction, I had only needed to be in one.

A few years later I firmly understood what it meant to create your own home.
It's hard to explain but before I just needed to have a place to stay and because of that I worked hard to pay rent in time but it would be just that, a house that I lived in.

Now I have a place to stay, but I have made it into a home, a sanctuary and a place of rest and growth.

I know longer cry on my way back to my home from my ancestral home.
I know there is safety, warmth and good food in my own home, and God's spirit flows freely.

The Past Four Years

 When I paid for an ad to start teaching English online, I expected it to only last the three tropical winter months- June, July and August, then I would be comfortable to walk around again doing my hair clients and attending farmer's markets to compile stories.

I didn't know that I would start to like and enjoy it so much that I would end up signing up for a Teaching Diploma, which would have me working in a school in Europe, and then with professionals. Now, I am not even very clear on my job description because my roles have morphed into one beautiful giant that changes depending on the day.

Sometimes I am teaching grammar to school children, some days I am having hard discussions with Pyschology PHD students, and two days in a week I meet up with two Risk Management Accountants explain things like, Hazard and Operability. I often need to watch several SNL skits after these lessons.

 Then I have my four teenagers who have me searching for a myriad of topics from vegetarian diets to football to questions like 'can I show you my latest Anime figure?' in the middle of a grammar lesson. The kids come in all cute, with their stuffed animals during winter, or a jar of ice cubes to snack on in Winter.

There is an architect, co-ordinating one hundred projects, and I get to see the European rural arena with its numerous berries.

Now I eat, drink and sleep Students. They've become my friends, and I am an auntie to the children, and I am glad for this part of my life.