IHUOMA

Back in lower primary, there was a teacher who used to send me home every week. She used to tell me, "Go and tell your mother to comb your hair". I kept short hair that Mama used to scratch down until I resembled Uhuru Kenyatta's father (the first president of Kenya)

This teacher would inspect my school uniform religiously looking for dirt or a tear. When she found none, she would instead send me home with clear instructions, "Go and tell your mother to buy you a new school uniform, yours is old". One time, I 'borrowed' her permission to go pee. She refused and proceeded to teach. I begged her again and again, and the third time she caned me. She only allowed me to go pee when she was sure that I had peed on myself. Then she sent me home for peeing on myself.

But here is the thing.

Every time she sent me home, I just walked to the staffroom crying, and stood at the door, waiting for my mother, who was a teacher in the same school. My mother Josephine Makori would finish her lessons, take me behind the teacher's toilet and comb my hair, cover my books, inspect my school uniform, and take me back to class. When this teacher discovered that I used to stand outside the staffroom to wait for my mother, she graduated to escorting me outside the school gate because the 'staffroom is not home'. I would stand outside the gate until the watchman fetched my mother from the staffroom.

The day I peed on myself, much to the laughter of the entire lower primary, was the day my mother's patience ran out. I remember her storming into class, in the middle of a lesson, grabbing my bags, books, and my shy self. She dragged me from Alpha Primary to Queen of Angels Primary without saying a word. She was breathing heavily. There is a valley that separates these two schools. We went down and up that valley like Ninjas. We were floating, quite literally. The heat and dust hid from my mother. She was looking like a mad black woman. Nobody has ever wanted to face a mad black woman. Ever.

We made it to Queen of Angels, all sweaty and dusty like porcupines. And remember I had peed on myself, so I did not smell like roses and butterflies. My mother told Mr. Richard, the school's head teacher, to figure out what to do with me because I was not going back to my former school and she was not going back home with me. My mum said, "All my child needs is a desk". We would stay outside Richard’s office for hours. I think he thought my mum would give up and go.

She didn't.

Mr. Richard, tired of dealing with an adamant mother, just strutted to class 3W and told the teacher to find me space, in one of the desks. The space available was at the back of the class. My mother did not care. All she wanted was me- in class- at Queen of Angels Primary School. My new class teacher welcomed me to her class with grapes. I was shocked. She did not even care that I was wearing a different school uniform. She did not even turn my head this way and that way to inspect my hair. I was in her class now, and in her class, we ate grapes, had permission to run to the toilets when pressed, and my classmates spoke English that I had no idea existed.

English that Mrs. Wanyoike (Now Deputy Head teacher Rititi Primary School) would then teach me with so much love and patience until I became the best writer in primary school. I don't know what happened when my mum got back to Alpha Primary School, I have never asked her, because I will never forget the look on her face that day. It was like a burning bush. And Me I'm not Moses to be out here speaking to burning bushes. No Sir!

God, you see that fire that mum had on that day when we floated from one school to another like Power puff girls, send me a whole container of that stuff, to use this year. And bless my mother with life and health, that she may see your goodness in the land of the living.

*****

And please, no negativity against anyone...those are not the ways of my mother.