In adolescence:
the bully
In 1996, after much begging, crying, fasting and
throwing a big tantrum, my grandmother and mother gave up and agreed to move me into a
different school. My best friend had moved the term before and I could not
handle life anymore. I had to repeat classes in the new school, so my friend
was a class ahead but she came to stand with me in parade on the first day of
school.
After parade I got into the dusty classroom, new
faces all about me with no locker or chair and in a few minutes the Kiswahili
teacher came in. So what to do? I looked around and three other kids were
sitting on a bench so I went over and asked them to squeeze themselves. The boy obliged.
Nice friendly boy. Fat boys are rarely mean.
After the lesson, another boy came over right away and
started to laugh so loudly it caught everyone’s attention. He was saying:
-Wa,wa,wa did you see her? She put her butt right next
to Peter(let’s call the fat boy Peter). ati please squeeze for me....- And everybody thought it was very
funny, the girls especially.
My adolescence pride had been hurt but I was in a
new school and didn’t want to cause trouble, so with my butt still on the bench
I got out a storybook to read.
Lunchtime came and when I got back, I found my bag on
the floor, dusty on both sides and someone volunteered the information that
(James, let's call him that) the boy that was laughing at me earlier had thrown it on the floor. I
confronted him, asked him to wipe the dust off. He glared at me, I glared back
so he beat the dust out with his hand.
Our relationship did not get better, I got a desk later but my keys would go missing until
I ran out of spares. All the way up to Standard eight. One time I found them in
the flower bed behind the classroom. People said it was James that stole them
but I had no proof. In class seven the dislike flared so much I called him
KIHII on his face. And to call a KIKUYU boy KIHII is like calling a black
person a nigga.
 |
| This is a James no doubt |
This is how it happened; our class teacher would arrange the class in such away that
regardless of which number you held in the exams, no one could tell by the
class order. He mixed us up boy girl boy girl boy girl. If he had used the
class numbers style, James and I would have been desk mates eternally.
That did not stop him from bringing his chair over to carry out a conversation around me. His conversations were mainly
about sex. I would not laugh or look at him. I just buried my head in a novel which
only made him speak louder, until the day I erupted and told him he was a
stupid KIHII.
When I thought about it, I realised I might have feared the boy.
All that sex talk and meanness. In the former school, there was a boy of similar manners.
His meanness was not directed to me only but to all the girls. He used dirty
language and one time on the way home, he jumped on my back but
the scream I let out made him flee quicker than any police siren would have.
So James, if this was not a boarding school, I suppose might have tried to jump on my back or
something gross like that.
The guy you didn’t marry in your 20’s
You
are a late bloomer you know. So when he talked of children and his mother
and financial security your head got confused. You suddenly realised you still
didn’t even know how to look after yourself. How would you be expected to look after three or four children and polish shoes with kiwi everyday for your hard
working husband?
So you ran. Not because he was a bad guy but he was a good guy
that came at an inconvenient time. A good guy with a stable career and good morals. You still needed to figure things out. At 22, your dreams were so big you could not imagine them contained in a one
bedroom apartment in Kahawa Sukari, Umoja 2 or South B.
You
wanted to go places, Asia, Jamaica, South America. You wanted to finish writing
the three novels, you wanted to make peace with family members that ‘left’. So you let him go.
Or
maybe it was him that let you go, when he talked of goals and ambitions and not
seeing himself married in the next five years but still wanted to go out for
tea and samosa and the big game with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice for you, and a Tusker for him.
Yet, you were ready; you were ready to give up your own dreams, you were ready to take
his name even though it didn’t really rhyme with yours. You were ready to clean his boxers
and go to the market with his mother. Heck, you were even ready to give birth
to the three children he wanted, you know they wouldn’t be very good looking,
but they would be healthy, coz you now had a recipe book and an oven and a good
job that would cover the deficits.
But he started to slip, he wanted to know how
much you would cost- like really? So you smiled and told him that he had to
consider that your family gave you an education. Your heart was numb, you
didn’t tell him that your family didn’t care about such nonsense. You smiled,
because your family would never meet this fool. Then you relocated and bought
an Orange line.
Middle Age: What Beyonce discovered
before you did.
That
Jay Z is actually a very good looking man. If you look at the overall picture.
I
remember watching the music video for the song Jay Z sang with Pharrell Williams,
Excuse Miss. All I saw was Pharrell.
But
in middle age you learn you got to see the whole picture; when you meet the
decent boy that was a caterpillar then but has now metamorphosed. Yea, just
like plants and other things that are living souls. No wait, plants aren’t
souls. I mean baby rabbits that are born without fur but later become fluffy
balls.
On to
quiet boys who always finished their homework, were a bit sensitive and not too
good looking then. But you meet them 25 years later and you want to go for a 40
day hike in Chalbi desert just to repent your sins, coz you were mean to them
at some point. In school, when they offered to help copy the Biology group
notes you rolled your eyes, because you thought their hands would sweat all
over your Kasuku Brand exercise book.
 |
| sensitive lads |
|
And you never looked at them once, unless
it was to ignore them and remark how bushy their eye brows were.
But
how could you pay them attention, when
you were into tall dark and handsome boys that wore bandanas on the flip
side, like Snoop.
Those boys still look like Snoop today.
And
on value evaluation you know you are not that hot thing you were at 16. In your
mind you are hearing lyrics like:
And
you start to think seriously about life.
You
regret watching too many American sitcoms, Australian TV series and Westlife. Because they gave you a
distorted view of the kind of males you will meet as you grow.
Even though it was the geeks and nerds that intrigued you, had you been less flirtatious.
KIHII- An immature man that talks and does inappropriate things.
