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I
have lost my writing edge, I can't think of the best way to flawlessly write.
Either way, I am going to write about it because I have decided to immerse
myself in this apt pastime that not only makes me more intelligent (this is for
real), but also keeps me busy and disciplined. Being busy is a noble way of
killing boredom, solitude and stress.
Siberia it was. Years ago, I only knew Siberia as a very cold region found in the Reds Army Nation. I remember telling my friend Nico about Siberia. Mmmmh! Every time I meet with Nico, he reminds me of Siberia as if it is something that was so fun to reminisce about. He usually taunts me and makes a joke out of it as if it is some overripe story.
Nico was my campus senior. He has this infectious laughter that has kept him going amid the vicissitudes of being an entrepreneur. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if most youth were as courageous as Nico. He never ever thought of applying for a job. A waste of time he thought, having discovered he could make a living without too much laboring. A former 'Changez' bugger, he had a very touching story.
I remember attending his graduation and his mom narrated about his struggle with ailments in school. He never had it rosy but still passed his final exams. Yet amid all that struggle, he still managed to make it to campus. A real hustler, Nico is inspirational. Even in campus, he never had it easy. Yet he sauntered on with life. He looked at life in the context of making it easy when it got tough. And his laughter, his dark complexion, his bespectacled face, his wit and his dedication to Christ are virtues I did admire.
For those who attended Lazz (Ladies Attraction Zone) as our school was known, there were a host of infamous cubes known as Siberia. Siberia, anyone who slept in these rooms knew what it meant to sleep in a room that was bleak and frosty.
Siberia was cold, like literally. It was meant for all the students irrespective of the class they were in. Unfortunately, a bulk of those who slept in it were form ones. Impunity starts at a very tender age, I tell you. The boarding master beseeched dormitory captains to ensure that each and every cube had every student of all the forms but that fell on deaf ears. It was never implemented in Siberia. Siberia was a real initiation into high school. Most of those in form two, three and four did slept in cubes that were inside.
Siberia were those cubes at the very periphery of the hostel- sorry dormitory. Our dorms were divided into cubes with no doors and hosted about four or six students depending on the size of the dorm. They were not small though, because there were enough room for lockers. Those who slept in Siberia can attest to the fact that when the door remained ajar during the cold winter season (long rains), it was tantamount to sleeping in a camp tent with no blankets.
It really gets cold inside the bed. The kind of cold that penetrates the quilt creeping inside you clothes spreading on your skin like a lacy tide on a frigid winter. You could sometimes hear a gentle chattering of teeth as the cold left the face numb when you passed by Siberia.
Siberia was not only meant for sleeping. It was also for receiving a dose of medicine if the dorms never performed well. Even though one tries to remember the good things about one’s school days, there’s one abiding memory I have, literally a hurtful one that I want to describe: the painful, humiliating, angry memory of being caned.
I never knew who sanctioned this system of punishment to be meted out on young and innocent form ones by senior students. It was more than the bullying synonymous to most high school. Being whacked by a fellow student was the worst form of penance that a fellow could be subjected to. Sometimes you got spanked after doing a series of pushups that were counted from the negative when you fell or did denigrate.
Thank goodness the good old and famous ‘Nyuki’ brought to an end the shameless system through measures that aided in reducing the vice. Nyuki was a new principal who was bit by a bee and it being his first statement during his premier address of the school of having been bit, the name stuck. He even knew the name.
So years later, there was this lady I met last year who narrated to me an emotional story of her elder brother’s tribulations in the hands of two school captains who gave him lethal strokes to a point where the poor boy had to be taken for medical assistance in the nearby hospital. Of course the school captains were shown the door. Guys used to show me the captains who would have been enjoying the trappings of power and the privileges that came with being the heads of a student body and I did sneer because they had rightfully been shown their place in life.
Siberia it was. Years ago, I only knew Siberia as a very cold region found in the Reds Army Nation. I remember telling my friend Nico about Siberia. Mmmmh! Every time I meet with Nico, he reminds me of Siberia as if it is something that was so fun to reminisce about. He usually taunts me and makes a joke out of it as if it is some overripe story.
Nico was my campus senior. He has this infectious laughter that has kept him going amid the vicissitudes of being an entrepreneur. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if most youth were as courageous as Nico. He never ever thought of applying for a job. A waste of time he thought, having discovered he could make a living without too much laboring. A former 'Changez' bugger, he had a very touching story.
I remember attending his graduation and his mom narrated about his struggle with ailments in school. He never had it rosy but still passed his final exams. Yet amid all that struggle, he still managed to make it to campus. A real hustler, Nico is inspirational. Even in campus, he never had it easy. Yet he sauntered on with life. He looked at life in the context of making it easy when it got tough. And his laughter, his dark complexion, his bespectacled face, his wit and his dedication to Christ are virtues I did admire.
For those who attended Lazz (Ladies Attraction Zone) as our school was known, there were a host of infamous cubes known as Siberia. Siberia, anyone who slept in these rooms knew what it meant to sleep in a room that was bleak and frosty.
Siberia was cold, like literally. It was meant for all the students irrespective of the class they were in. Unfortunately, a bulk of those who slept in it were form ones. Impunity starts at a very tender age, I tell you. The boarding master beseeched dormitory captains to ensure that each and every cube had every student of all the forms but that fell on deaf ears. It was never implemented in Siberia. Siberia was a real initiation into high school. Most of those in form two, three and four did slept in cubes that were inside.
Siberia were those cubes at the very periphery of the hostel- sorry dormitory. Our dorms were divided into cubes with no doors and hosted about four or six students depending on the size of the dorm. They were not small though, because there were enough room for lockers. Those who slept in Siberia can attest to the fact that when the door remained ajar during the cold winter season (long rains), it was tantamount to sleeping in a camp tent with no blankets.
It really gets cold inside the bed. The kind of cold that penetrates the quilt creeping inside you clothes spreading on your skin like a lacy tide on a frigid winter. You could sometimes hear a gentle chattering of teeth as the cold left the face numb when you passed by Siberia.
Siberia was not only meant for sleeping. It was also for receiving a dose of medicine if the dorms never performed well. Even though one tries to remember the good things about one’s school days, there’s one abiding memory I have, literally a hurtful one that I want to describe: the painful, humiliating, angry memory of being caned.
I never knew who sanctioned this system of punishment to be meted out on young and innocent form ones by senior students. It was more than the bullying synonymous to most high school. Being whacked by a fellow student was the worst form of penance that a fellow could be subjected to. Sometimes you got spanked after doing a series of pushups that were counted from the negative when you fell or did denigrate.
Thank goodness the good old and famous ‘Nyuki’ brought to an end the shameless system through measures that aided in reducing the vice. Nyuki was a new principal who was bit by a bee and it being his first statement during his premier address of the school of having been bit, the name stuck. He even knew the name.
So years later, there was this lady I met last year who narrated to me an emotional story of her elder brother’s tribulations in the hands of two school captains who gave him lethal strokes to a point where the poor boy had to be taken for medical assistance in the nearby hospital. Of course the school captains were shown the door. Guys used to show me the captains who would have been enjoying the trappings of power and the privileges that came with being the heads of a student body and I did sneer because they had rightfully been shown their place in life.
In fact, the school captain was answerable to
the Principal. He was so powerful.
The lady’s younger brother never made it to Lazz following the ill treatment her older brother had been subjected to while in Lazz. This lady was the daughter of a powerful area chief. As usual, she expected me to have known her dad. Sadly, I was at pains to deny the same owing to the fact that I never did roam in the area and its vicinity.
Friday was usually the day when we would receive what our then school principal used to call the sharp, quick and nasty ones. Though somehow taciturn, when his tempers flared, you sure would have never think of crossing his path. 'Conc', due to his mastery of matters Chemistry was his nick name.
You see, (direct translation there- unaona) those days, loaf was life. Especially unsliced bread. Forget about the bugger who said ‘the best thing after sliced bread.’ We loved unsliced bread because we could press it into a single slice. It came naked. There was a time the school canteen tried giving sliced bread and it was a disaster.
Every other Saturday, there was general cleanliness. Washing the ablutions, maintaining the lawns (slashing), working on the flowers, scrubbing the floors spotless they turned white, and all matters to do with general cleanliness. While a mono, we were not required to be clean while inspection of the dorm was in progress. But changes are inevitable and we had to be clean in the years that followed.
Mondays were meant for release of the results of the dormitories that performed very well. Two dormitories formed a house. In that regard, if both your dormitories performed well, there was a reward of a half loaf of bread for every student in the house. I still can’t fathom the fact that I have lost the hanker for bread years later.
Even though the task of cleaning the dorms was tasked to both the form one and twos, form twos never bore the brunt when the house performed dismally. So as form ones when our house was not doing well, we the monos were spanked by prefects for being ‘vichwa.’ This was usually was meted out on Friday night. And it was worse when the prefect had failed in exams.
Once, I told the dorm captain that I was sick and if he dared touch me, he could regret hitting a sick student.
For the form ones who were sagacious, they roamed the institution the whole night making it to bed in the wee hours of the night to evade the rattan.
There was a certain friend who was beaten by a block of wood having been suspected to have stolen some items because his cardigan with his name sewn on it was found at the scene of crime. Boy, when he told me it was mistaken identity, I felt for him. But all in all, he was given a thorough beating like a stray wild dog nabbed by rural dwellers that had been feasting on their sheep and goats.
In our sophomore years, Nyuki could not tolerate such vices. He sacked any captain found engaging in the vice and gave students audience and authority to report any of the captains who flouted the rule of no wickerwork.
I had always wished there would come such a time. It came just when we had moved to the next class. However, I bet Siberia still remains. Those who slept there were academic nerds and geniuses, especially in our dorm. The biting cold that chilled their bodies and seeped into their toes, painfully through the feet and tearing into their hearts making their blood turn into icy sludge ensured they were early risers as the rest of us roared soundly in our comfy beds. The wind that cut through their skin and tortuously slashed their marrow with constant harsh blows, like rime daggers, as we moaned in the pleasure that was their pain. Our beds that had turned into domestic luxury, pacifying and isn’t the bed the best endowment a high student loves?
SITUONANE
[Photo source: Google Images]
The lady’s younger brother never made it to Lazz following the ill treatment her older brother had been subjected to while in Lazz. This lady was the daughter of a powerful area chief. As usual, she expected me to have known her dad. Sadly, I was at pains to deny the same owing to the fact that I never did roam in the area and its vicinity.
Friday was usually the day when we would receive what our then school principal used to call the sharp, quick and nasty ones. Though somehow taciturn, when his tempers flared, you sure would have never think of crossing his path. 'Conc', due to his mastery of matters Chemistry was his nick name.
You see, (direct translation there- unaona) those days, loaf was life. Especially unsliced bread. Forget about the bugger who said ‘the best thing after sliced bread.’ We loved unsliced bread because we could press it into a single slice. It came naked. There was a time the school canteen tried giving sliced bread and it was a disaster.
Every other Saturday, there was general cleanliness. Washing the ablutions, maintaining the lawns (slashing), working on the flowers, scrubbing the floors spotless they turned white, and all matters to do with general cleanliness. While a mono, we were not required to be clean while inspection of the dorm was in progress. But changes are inevitable and we had to be clean in the years that followed.
Mondays were meant for release of the results of the dormitories that performed very well. Two dormitories formed a house. In that regard, if both your dormitories performed well, there was a reward of a half loaf of bread for every student in the house. I still can’t fathom the fact that I have lost the hanker for bread years later.
Even though the task of cleaning the dorms was tasked to both the form one and twos, form twos never bore the brunt when the house performed dismally. So as form ones when our house was not doing well, we the monos were spanked by prefects for being ‘vichwa.’ This was usually was meted out on Friday night. And it was worse when the prefect had failed in exams.
Once, I told the dorm captain that I was sick and if he dared touch me, he could regret hitting a sick student.
For the form ones who were sagacious, they roamed the institution the whole night making it to bed in the wee hours of the night to evade the rattan.
There was a certain friend who was beaten by a block of wood having been suspected to have stolen some items because his cardigan with his name sewn on it was found at the scene of crime. Boy, when he told me it was mistaken identity, I felt for him. But all in all, he was given a thorough beating like a stray wild dog nabbed by rural dwellers that had been feasting on their sheep and goats.
In our sophomore years, Nyuki could not tolerate such vices. He sacked any captain found engaging in the vice and gave students audience and authority to report any of the captains who flouted the rule of no wickerwork.
I had always wished there would come such a time. It came just when we had moved to the next class. However, I bet Siberia still remains. Those who slept there were academic nerds and geniuses, especially in our dorm. The biting cold that chilled their bodies and seeped into their toes, painfully through the feet and tearing into their hearts making their blood turn into icy sludge ensured they were early risers as the rest of us roared soundly in our comfy beds. The wind that cut through their skin and tortuously slashed their marrow with constant harsh blows, like rime daggers, as we moaned in the pleasure that was their pain. Our beds that had turned into domestic luxury, pacifying and isn’t the bed the best endowment a high student loves?
SITUONANE
[Photo source: Google Images]
