That aside, today I am not going to dwell on bullying, not when am in a very good mood to talk about my dark day in form Two. That day when our Geography teacher Mrs. Owino decided that she was going to teach us about Bacolith, Lacolith and all the possible "liths" in Geography, all that in the name of rocks!! I decided that I was not going to concentrate; this is because she had really gotten into my nerves. She had been on duty the previous weekend and I had been her victim. It had been a Saturday and there was nothing as boring as going to class on a Saturday, so we would always do anything possible to skive the Saturday classes and for me, it was to pretend that I was an SDA and I would spend the day with SDAs in their church. On this particular day, Mrs. Owino found me roaming some place we had nicknamed "academic forest" and wanted to punish me for skiving lessons and I lied to her that I was an SDA. That's when she asked me about "Pathfinders". I did not even have an idea what the word meant, but since she was my Geog teacher, I thought the word had something to do with Geog and I answered that Pathfinders were those huge rocks that rolled from a up a mountain and in the process, creating paths for the smaller rocks to roll on thus, the name pathfinders. Do I still need to tell you what happened after that?? Do I?
Okay, let's go back to that dark day in class. Since I decided that I was not going to concentrate, I took out my song book. You see, in high school, we had these books that had songs that had been cut from the newspapers and pasted on them. Those lyrics that used to be on the Sunday Nation known as 'Pop Stop'. Those of us who lived in the rural areas did not know the songs as much as those from urban areas, so to catch up with them, we had to have our pop stop books intact. The song that was the hit those days was Shaggy's Angel. So I opened my book and started cramming the words one by one, not even bothering to listen to the teacher. As much as I was not listening to her, I had my eyes on her every two minutes, just to make her think I was with her. My desk mate and fellow 'hooligan' Mercy Gwada had lost concentration as well and began sleeping. We were seated at the back bench and so sleeping was what we did best without getting noticed. On this day, Mercy was not lucky enough; the teacher saw her sleeping and started walking towards her. I saw the teacher coming and decided not to wake Mercy up and warn her. She had just set me up with our Maths teacher that morning and it had earned me hot slaps. It was payback time, I smiled as the teacher approached us as I imagined how Mercy was going to react after being woken up.
When the teacher got to us, she looked at me and asked me to stand up. That is when I realized that I was so much into setting up Mercy that I even forgot that I had a song book instead of my Geog book at my desk. Talk of twist of events! As I stood up, Mercy woke up and found the teacher holding my song book. She started smiling at me as if telling me to be careful next time, little did she know that she had been the reason why the teacher was there. We were then sent out and told to lie on the grass in front of our classroom. The weather had not been so good and so the grass was wet but we had no choice, after all, it was a better punishment than being told to go and wait in the staffroom where one would answer the same question to every passing teacher.
We were lying heads facing down and were busy catching up on the soap that was on air during that time, ESMERALDA. Mercy had fallen in love with one character in that soap, 'Osiomando' (forget about the spelling) and we were busy talking about him when hell broke loose. You see, there are these ants that walk in a line and make some noise as they walk and are very big in size and Black in colour. I don't know how to refer to them in English but I know in Luo they are referred to as 'Olang'o'. At least that is how I found people calling them in that school. These ants normally walk in a single file and would go wild at any disturbance. Any little interference on the line and they would go on a stinging spree. They sting better than a bee, so you can imagine.
The ants had done the unthinkable, they had made Mercy and I their path!! They were in a very long line and since we were in their path, they decided to walk over us as if we were some kind of log on their way. This meant we could not move until they had all walked over us. We lay there so still, not a single movement, we even stopped talking so that we did not mess with them. They were so many, the line was very long, we could not even see its end but patience was something we needed here. Just then the bell rung and the lesson ended. Mrs. Owino walked out of the class and shouted at us," Itindi and Gwada, come here" . hehehee, no response, there was no way we were going to move a single inch, leave alone standing up. We kept answering her questions without looking up or moving an inch.
Mrs. Owino …………………Itindi and Gwada!! I said stand up!
Mercy and I in unison………….Yes madam.
Mrs. Owino …………………Come here!
Mercy………………………(making sure only her lips were moving, leave alone her mouth) Just go we will follow you to the staffroom in a short while.
Mrs. Owino……………..If I get there I will finish you, can you stand up!! (now the whole form two block was looking out the window at us)
Me……………………..Olang'o is here with us. (I thought if I mentioned the ants name in Luo, she would realize how serious the situation was and let us be until the ants went.)
Mrs. Owino……………what are you saying?
Mercy…………………….She is saying Olang'o is here with us.
Mrs. Owino…………….and who is Olang'o?
Mercy…………………….(whispers to me) Kwani Beryl hizi dudu haziitwangi Olang'o na English?.
Me………………………….Sasa wewe unafikiria Olang'o ni English word?
Mercy…………………….Hapana, nilikuwa tu nafikiria ni Scientific name ya hizi dudu.
As we were whispering to each other, Mrs. Owino was walking towards us , with a stick, a very big one for that matter. She stepped on the ants' line as she approached us and messed with them. It was 'everyone for himself ' time!! We were not going to wait for those ants to finish us! We both jumped up and took off our sweaters as we ran around while screaming. Don't ask me what happened next, all I can say is that we spent the next week in the sick bay. Thanx to Olang'o.
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