Long walk to school for African children

By JOSEPH KARIMI

My Standard One teacher and mentor, the late Dionisio Kariuki was a humble, God- loving fatherly figure. His home was on the Ng’ang’ariithi ridge, overlooking Nyeri town and right opposite our Karia home across the Kanoga stream.

We attended class in the afternoon. This was in 1951. Our school had quite a large population, with four classes of between 30 and 40 pupils, accommodated in two blocks. Three of the classes including ours were accommodated in the timber block, while Standard Four was in a separate mud-walled block. It also housed the head teacher’s office and a staff room. There was a playground, a flag post where the Union Jack was hoisted on Mondays. Along the northern edge was a line of pit latrines.

Our class had desks, each shared by two pupils. The floor was earth and dusty requiring watering twice a week to keep down the dust. The school was surrounded by gardens thriving with bananas and seasonal crops including maize, beans and millet and sorghum. There were also trees here and there and the thatching grass (tussock) marking the boundaries of the gardens and the school. My mother had a large plot planted with these crops.     

As soon as we got into class, Dionisio opened our day with a prayer. Then we greeted our teacher in chorus and before we sat, there was a saying to recite…. “Kutii ni bora kuliko sadaka!” and then we sat.

It was now roll call from the register. We were very green to digest anything English but had to acknowledge we were present. Dionisio would shout: “Joseph Karimi?”......I stood up and in response as a routine, answered… “Murebeni teacher….ndikwo Mututani na ndirarikwo ira,” (present teacher, I am present and I was also present yesterday), then sit down. He didn’t seem to mind our poor mastery of English, and easily let “Murebeni” pass for “present”.

 Schools supervisors visited the school regularly to update the mission with the progress. Every denomination had their supervisors but there was one for all — the District Education Officer whose name I only recall was Mr Cocklan.

During the colonial days, a policy such as South Africa’s apartheid categorised schools as European, Asian and African insititutions. It was “Colour Bar” at its best.

Africans could not get admission to European schools, neither Asian and vice versa. European teachers and pupils would be found in schools like Nyeri Primary School, which was a European school. Temple Road in Nyeri was Asian only. Today, children of all races can attend both schools, which are among the oldest in the area.

African schools were allocated inadequate budgets as compared to the European or Asian ones. There were cases where pupils in Standard Four were deployed to teach the lower classes due to lack of enough teaching staff. Standards were however painfully maintained.

 Our class was fantastic. Dionisio warmed us up through a song which went thus: “Hulala hulala hulala,…You thimi and I see you…tekimi tekimi and I tekuyu!” we sang happily, never worrying what it meant. ((You see me and I see, take me take me and I take you.)

We then entered into the day’s lessons. Our first term in school in Sub A (today’s equivalent of nursery school)was conducted outdoor under the eaves of the building roofs where we spread out the soft soil with our palms like a slate or exercise book. We drilled over and over again with the finger, writing the alphabets and numbers to perfect our writing before we were taken to class and given exercise books and a pencil to start real learning. We were the privileged few.

Teachers were very strict in matters of discipline. One lesson – Handwork – was emphasised in the school curriculum because it trained pupils to be self-reliant and dependent on their own initiatives.

Lazy pupils

Items like Kihembe (a cylindrical hollowed piece of wood the Kikuyu use to trap moles), wooden cups, hats, wooded spoons, sisal ropes, sisal baskets and pullovers were made during the time allocated for the lesson. Lazy and naughty pupils earned severe beatings for failing to make the item by the end of the term.

 The curriculum was a combination of courses for academics and handy skills. Artisanship was a requisite and items like ropes were for daily use in handling livestock or for bailing produce like grass. Moles had to be trapped using a Kihembe.  There was a pupil named Nicholas, who was a trickster and managed to evade being caught during the term. He was supposed to turn in a rope at the end of the term, but never bothered to get the sisal and make the rope.  

He went home and found an old bed discarded at the backyard. Its frames had a network of ropes, which formed a net to hold the mattress. Nicholas was ingenious and he undid the dirty old rope, went to Kanoga Stream and did his best cleaning it. He stretched it to dry in the sun.

The final day to account for your handwork item came and Nicholas had carried his rag of a rope. Everyone stretched his rope and one Nicholas brought was soiled while the rest were pure white as the fibers used were fresh.

Nicholas had to explain this anomaly, but people could see through his lies. The rope was old and unpresentable. Nicholas was asked by the teacher to absolve his guilt by deciding punishment that was commensurate with his misadventure. He had to decide how many canes would absolve his wrong.

Arithmetic was Greek to him, but he went ahead asking for 144 strokes as punishment. Gakono was not amused and granted the teacher invited to help hold Nicholas in position as to administer the punishment. Some teachers held the culprit by the legs, others the head and others pinned his hands on the ground.

That thrashing started as counting continued. When the number received reached 50, he started crying out in pain. However, he received all the 144 strokes of the cane. Nicholas spent the next four weeks without sitting on his bottoms! But such were punishments meted on pupils for bad behaviour those days. Caning is prohibited under current laws.