Ouko III was the house in no mans land. Whichever way you looked at it, you had the notion that we were the institution’s marginalized group. We were the only dormitory which bordered the school farm, we actually used the well-trimmed cypress fence as cloth hangers. The only upside of living there was that the fence separating us from the Maseno Club was so old we could sneak out of school and back in without the security light alerting the watchmen. Siriba Teachers College was just a slingshot away, and when Maseno University took over the institution we could dance to their music while inside Ouko III. When dormitories were up for renovations, Ouko III would be bypassed because it was cheaper bringing it down than renovating it. It had the roughest floor in Maseno, and instead of getting a fresh coat of oil paint like other dorms, all the painters had to do was to crush the white limestone chalks, dilute them in water and whitewash the walls. The doors were the colonial ones - rough hardwood fortified with tough window panes you would strike them with a rocket propelled grenade the missile would ricochet back to the gunman. The windows were tiny we actually received natural lighting only when the sun was overhead at the Equator. If fire broke out in Ouko III at the dead of the night, we would have been up for a massive roasting nobody would have escaped. The house was so stuffy and uncomfortable Guantanamo Bay looked like a picnic camp. But nothing drove our irritation to the wall like being a mopper-on-duty. It was mandatory for every Form 1 reporting to Maseno School to come with a new water bucket and a hockey stick. The politics surrounding the hockey stick issue was so heated a parents meeting one day degenerated into a shouting match. But the water bucket was cheaper anyone could afford. I reported to Maseno on a game-time, straight to Jeam Agutus office for inspection and admission. My friend, the moment you left that office to get escorted to your new dorm, the first thing that got lost was the water bucket. They were to be taken to the House Captain for tagging and redistribution. My water trough was now Ouko House property and I had no rights to demand for it. So what happened when I needed to shower? I was expected to hassle for the few troughs just like anyone else. Imagine, the newest Form One in the school, the most confused element in the Maseno School periodic table, the guy who didn’t even know where the pit latrines were. The most innocent little thing being subjected to fighting it out for a trough of water like old hardened senior members of the school. I thought this was crap, and just before I was warming up to show these bimbos what Jimo villagers are made of, they assigned a certain Paul Nyarangi to be the inspector on duty. I lack words to describe Paul Nyarangi; because I have never encountered a more power-hungry, inconsiderate, ruthless prefect since I started my almighty quest for knowledge. I have heard stories about how short tempered male members of the Abagusii community can be but I have never seen a villager in school uniform punish students with such bile youd cringe when summoned by this charcoal-black, physically-stout prefect with a sandbag face communicating in pidgin English. Nyarangi was Lucifer-reincarnate his job was to mark common men for death he would never change the subject nor his mind. If he got you in his crosshairs, you would remain there till kingdom come. I was not privy to the qualities that were needed for one to be considered for the position of an inspector but it was clear they were for non academic reasons, because Nyarangi was this struggling academic dwarf he was better off in Nyakemincha than in Maseno. The post of an inspector was not worth bragging about, either. In fact, an inspector was just a Form 2 commoner with the license to slap. Newly reporting Form Ones were given two weeks to acclimatize. You would bypass the dining hall queue, not participate in community work, get served tea on demand, walk in the compound when others were running. Man, those were the most blissful two weeks in my entire life. People will look at me with envy you would think I was the one responsible for their misery. But when the honeymoon was over, the crash landing back to earth was as painful as it was devastating. Paul Nyarangi was not happy that I was enjoying my honeymoon as a newbie and he was itching to draft me into the moppers duty roster before I started growing horns. Every common man was to have a small plot in the compounds of their respective dormitories they would do manual work on them every morning. For moppers-on-duty, it was double work because you had 30 minutes to mop the house and slash your plot before the breakfast bell rang. Thirty minutes was a lot of time if you had all the resources at your disposal, but that was far from the ideal scenario. It was possible that you would fetch water for the whole mopping week, store them in 5 litre jerricans, lock them by your bedside and still come in that morning to find all of them gone. The kind of thievery that went on in that school was so alarming Maseno school was more of a thug den than an academic institution. So this fine morning my name was up for mopping, for the umpteenth time during Nyarangi’s inspectorate week. One thing about mopping was the pain we went through looking for water. It was so difficult getting water in that school tempers flared at Jacob’s Well every other tapping day. I had bent backwards to have a weekly stock so as not to inconvenience my mopping week. All was well until I rushed in to begin duty and there was nothing under my bed. The troughs of water and the jerricans that I had punched somebody’s nose to let me tap were all gone. And just when I was still mourning the loss of my most cherished movable assets, Paul Nyarangi tapped me on the back. “Kapiriel, I haf tolt you numerous times-si not to westi time turing manual waka. Come here, start frog-champing from this main toor to the stairs-si of the aplution plock.” That was vintage Nyarangi at his fluent best. I was frog-marching up Ouko ablution block back down to Ouko III fortified door, up down, up down until he was satisfied that I had learnt my lesson. While this was happening, the surface area I was to mop was still intact, and my fellow moppers had finished their part and were on their plots eroding to the ground. Nyarangi released me from the amphibian position just when the assembly bell was going off. Imagine, I had missed mopping, missed slashing my plot, missed breakfast (yes) and now the house assembly bell had rang while I was still in my house clothes. You should have seen Paul Nyarangi smiling while reading my name that morning among those students who were so tough-headed they refused to mop and slash their plots. The punishment? Two troughs of water and a rug that night to clean the whole Ouko House, alone, while others enjoyed their sleep. I did not bother looking for water because I did not come to Maseno School to beaten like sheep. I decided that I was either developing a thick skin or returning blow for blow. But one thing I was never going to do, was to give someone the license to walk over my skin like I was a war drum for hire.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 07:21:15 +0000
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