Back to School

This morning I was perched on my mothers lap as we traveled from one side of the city to the other[West Side to East Side as It is called by these youngsters] on my way to nursery school. The bus swerved sharply and my mother slid off the seat taking me with her and we fell to the floor, though safe and unharmed I blurted out "mami nitwagua" [mother we have fallen ].

I'm wearing this little green apron with my name stitched into it in yellow, not too sure who the designer is, maybe I should proudly say I am wearing MUM. I am in a happy go lucky mood not a care in the world as far as I am concerned the world is as large as where I am. Who am I kidding I have no idea about the world, but my parents and and siblings seem mighty proud when I get home and sing about all six continents from memory.

A few years roll by and I am in primary school in my white shirt,grey shorts and blue cardigan, long gone is the green apron with my name stitched into it in yellow, no longer do I fit on my mothers lap, no longer do I sing in chorus with the other kids, but here we say prayers in a strange language, a tongue that neither my father nor his forefathers have ever spoken, nor will they ever speak, I know not to which god we are praying to, yet I chant along with the rest to the morning prayer at my Indian school.

Now I speak in more than one language and still working on getting fluent in all, and pray in yet another strange one, we have no fields to play in, so we play in the back roads of our beautiful business district, using plastic oil cans for a football. On occasion you will find us playing marbles in the dusty the triangular shaped islands in the parking lot by the school, which once served as tree pots which  once dotted this street.

My friends and I head of down toward Nairobi river hanging off the back of trucks as they roll down the hill toward Kirinyaga road in our quest to visit downtown to buy sweet chapati crackers or to eat "zambarau" dont ask I do not know this fruits english name all I recall is that it was purple an not very sweet and is about ninety percent large seed.

I'm still in primary school but have moved to a new school closer to home, now I take a ride in the morning and walk back in the evening with my schoolmates, i am no longer a kid, but I am the only one who is not yet in his teens. I now notice that there are many girls here, I now notice their beauty, but I hang out with the boys more avoiding getting into awkward situations with the girls. "Once one one of the girls exclaimed during lunch time and said we eat like dogs". These kids come from way more richer families than mine, they speak through their noses like the English.

I walk to school each morning after alighting from the bus stop,  I still find it funny how the tune has  not changed in the years I have heard it, the touts continue to  shout "fourty six, fourty six, Kawangware, Bernard na Hurlingham, Kenya school of law".

The headmaster here is torturing me he keeps randomly mentioning my sister, but little does he know that he embarrasses me with his questions which he keeps posing during the most awkward moments like when he pops into class or during assembly.

Headmaster : (calls out my name during assembly and says) "How is your sister doing" every thing else he says gets drowned in laughter, I wish the ground would swallow me now.

I am still this little boy heading off to his teenage years, still very naive about life, girls, future and I am now in secondary school.  I have to take a long bus ride here once again traveling from Westside to the Eastside, I get teased here for coming to a low class school based on the neighborhood I grew up in.

I have experienced this growth spurt, I think I got dangled in my sleep and stretched about two feet, I have a little know it all attitude, the guys I hang out with do not have bad habits that I know off though my other schoolmates are smoking everything.

I am now out of high school working and earning a little and I realise that each day is back to school, there is so much to learn and ponder you cannot know everything, college, campus, technical training just leads to more questions.

Keep learning classroom, life or wherever it is you can grow yourself.