LIFE BY LOUIS: Not getting your school of choice is not the end of the world

My village had not heard of the secondary school I was called to. But our school produced businessmen, doctors, farmers, lawyers; all kinds of people. ILLUSTRATION | IGAH

What you need to know:

  • One parent who went to survey a school where his daughter had been admitted to came back suffering from severe jet lag.
  • When I received the letter to report to my high school, aptly nicknamed Manyani after an infamous freedom fighter’s detention camp, no one in the entire village had heard of that school.
  • But, it lived up to its promise.
  • Do you have feedback on this article? E-mail: [email protected]

I want to encourage parents whose children sat the 2018 KCPE exam and have been admitted into schools that they had not selected or they did not exactly like.

I have heard of parents from my village whose children have been admitted to join Lokitaung Secondary School in Turkana County and whose nearest town sounds like it is in Tripoli, Libya.

One parent who went to survey a school where his daughter had been admitted to came back suffering from severe jet lag, and when he returned we went to the matatu terminus to welcome him back with songs and gifts like someone who had gone to Europe.

The head prefect in charge of education has already stated categorically that there shall be no select committee or taskforce in her ministry to look into cases of parents and children who are not happy with the schools they have been admitted to.

As a parent you can still try your luck if the principal of a major national school shares the same cattle dip with you in the village and you can exploit that acquaintance for him to squeeze one more bed space for your child.

You can also try your luck in a big school that caters for children from underprivileged backgrounds and claim that you hail from a poor ancestry despite the fact that you live in an ensuite house with a heated swimming pool and Jacuzzi.

However, if your luck runs out, just let your child join Lokitaung.

SCHOOL LIFE

When I received the letter to report to my high school, aptly nicknamed Manyani after an infamous freedom fighter’s detention camp, no one in the entire village had heard of that school.

It lived up to its promise.

We showered in a communal bathroom with no doors and during peak shower time the place resembled a well-attended nudists conference.

During dinner, big weevils jumped out of our plates carrying all the maize and leaving us to starve with half-cooked beans and maize soup.

During lunch, we fished for pieces of cabbage from the cabbage soup and ate them with ugali that was made with flour from a nearby posho mill.

Luckily for us, the cabbage pieces were the size of an A4 page and we easily caught them and used them to cover our faces so as to avoid seeing some foreign bodies in the ugali. Then we swallowed the food with one song of praise and worship.

Tea in the morning was see-through like a piece of glass and it badly required a petticoat, but it had a lot of sugar to prevent us from gagging.

Bedbugs slept with us at night, sucking the top layer of our blood and leaving large bumps on our already pimple-infested skins.

The only spoken English I knew was just sufficient to ask for directions and borrow a few items that were shared including plates, mugs, spoons and scrubbing sacks.

I still don’t understand why we insisted on using pieces of sacks to scrub our bodies during shower time like we had been working in a dusty quarry all day. One piece of sack could be shared by the whole dormitory.

During peak showering period, one sack could serve more than five people at a go. The primary owner would scrub himself and as he rinses himself off, he would pass the sack to the next person in waiting who would sometimes proceed to use the sack without rinsing off the lather. If we never caught terrible skin diseases in that period, then there is something that dermatologists are not telling us.

But reading was serious business.

We competed fiercely because we realised that the only way out of that former detention camp was through education.

There was no time for anything else but reading, so we spent most of the time in class or in the library.

ALL CAREERS

At night, the mere thought of joining the bedbugs in your bed kept you in class until late. When you woke up at 4am and realised that the bugs were just about to drain out all your blood if you did not take drastic action, you simply got up and went to the classroom and crammed the Archimedes principle again.

Out of the school emerged below average students who went to become prominent farmers and owners of chains of hardware shops and pickup trucks.

Out of the same school came average students who went to seek employment from the hardware shops and later started bars and car wash businesses outside the hardware shops.

The same school produced above average lawyers that we go to see when we have gotten ourselves in trouble with the boys and girls who are now wearing new blue uniforms.

The same school churned out sharp doctors that you go to see when your child has accidentally swallowed an insect. The doctor complicates the issue while consulting heavily from thick medical journals.

He gives you important clues including travelling to India where he knows a reputable insect charmer who can lure the insect from your child’s stomach. You refuse to buy into the idea because you don’t know of a matatu that plies the route between your village and India.

He therefore recommends two procedures that he calls endoscopy and biopsy, all the while peering from above his gold-rimmed glasses.

He finally interprets the lab reports from the procedures and tells you that your son requires to undergo surgery. He gives you a quote, you look at it and conclude you must sell something in order to afford his generous surgery fees.

You go home and look for things you have in pairs and you can do without one. It is a hard decision, you announce to yourself. The only possible culprits are one of your kidneys.

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