These days I often look at the reforms introduced by Matiang’i and wish that he would have also happened during our time. One of the most beneficial reforms the kids of these days enjoy as a result of Matiang’i’s intervention is the school holidays which had been converted into mandatory schooling sessions by rogue teachers. As far as I can remember some of us started attending these tuitions as early as class four and endured them to up to class eight before resting for two years, form one and two then resuming the drill. Kwanza zile za high school zilikua more fire, lesson ni one hour and at most were double lessons thus two intensive hours na hakuna ile normal break ya games time since were stayed in class up to 5pm. At the end of the tuition mtu alikua anasikia ni kama ametoka Nazi concentration camp juu ya mental and psychological fatigue. Sa nkiwa hapo form two August nkajua that was my last holiday to enjoy since starting next year routine ni two extra weeks at school in the name of tuition with the exception of December. Hio holiday ilikua tujibambe yetu yote. By then we were a four man team. Form zilikua kukaa home hadi lunch then from 2pm kwenda dufo mpararo hadi kitu 4pm then ball by the riverside hadi jioni. Usiku form ilikua ku patrol kwa boma za madem tukiitania kwa fence and waylaying girls by the roadside hadi kitu 9pm before retiring back home.
Despite the river Khalaba being our usual fun spot, there were a bunch of bullies mostly school dropouts and village bad boys who constantly terrorized us. These bullies had different ways of harassing you. The most common and dreaded harassment method involved drowning you and was referred to as ‘[I]kukumezesha madebe[/I]’. A bully gets in you in water, mostly in the deep end and holds you down in water and you drown trying to breathe and will let you to come to the surface periodically for air before repeating the procedure. This method had a lasting effect as one was not only traumatized but left the river with almost zero energy since most of the energy was spent fighting the bully and trying to breathe. When the bully finally releases you utoke nje ya maji, ilikua unatulia kuregain energy then straight home. The other one was to take off with your clothes while you’re still swimming hence going home becomes impossible and you have to wait for darkness or send someone home to get you clothes. At times the bully could force you to wash his clothes or do other tasks for him but the final harassment was physical assault and was reserved for swimmers that also posed a threat to the bully. Over time we had outgrown all sorts of harassment and assault remained the only punitive measure that could be applied since we had developed counter measures to every strategy except assault. There was one bully ‘[B][I]Mashoka[/I][/B]’ who after trying to drown a friend and failing decided to take off with his clothes and we started shouting ‘Thief!, Thief!’ making him stop in his tracks since that alarm combined with a sprinting nigger is recipe for disaster, mob justice. Due to the fact that we were a bit grown up, the only applicable form of harassment that we could be subjected to was [B][I]kuporwa[/I][/B] with the intimidation of kupigwa. In this sense, your clothes get frisked your swimming for valuables while you’re swimming and if you accost the thief unapigwa. Those with elder ruthless brothers or influential parents were spared this shenanigan coz their parents would come to their aid. As a first born child I had no one to defend me and my parents were sad news about going to Khalaba. I had first been banned from going to the river for a number of reasons namely the water was dirty, I could drown or I could get bitten by water reptiles.
One fine afternoon we are deep in water playing ‘Chako’ when one of the most notorious bullies by the name ‘Scorpion’ aka ‘m-tick’ shows up. Chako is a game that entails passing bad luck to the next person through touch and you have to evade the touch at all costs. The flowing water, the brown colour of the river water and our swimming techniques made chako enjoyable. As somebody could submerge at one point and resurface over 50 metres away as you’re searching the same place. In some instances it was an open contest where you chase each other up or down stream swimming or even on land till you passed the luck. Scorpion was one of the village ruffians and was known for giving people razorblade marks on the face typical to the teacher’s tick symbol hence the name ‘m-tick’. As a result, no one dared cross his path as he was feared by both adults and children alike. Several times people had tried to get him arrested but since he was the only son to the mother who served as a village elder, his freedom was always guaranteed however long he stayed in prison and whenever he came out his vengeance was always lethal.
When scorpion showed up, he went straight to our clothes to salvage any valuables he could lay his hands on. On my part I had carried no valuable and had no cause for alarm. However, my friend Ron had carried with him a new phone that his father had gifted him a week prior to the incident. After Ron saw scorpion he tried to run to his clothes but Scorpion sensed something and was too fast for Ron. With the phone in Scorpion’s hand we knew Ron’s goose was fried. Ron tried to beg him to no avail juu saa hio msee amekua extremely violent considering the value of the phone back then. Time tuliona hii simu hatutapata nka ambia rende kama mbaya mbaya, wacha tu uwawe lakini simu ibaki. Hapo tukatoka maji tukavaa nguo na kumzunga na fito from wild vegetation growing by the riverside. Kitu huyo ninja alifanya ni kutoa wembe mbili as usual and dared us to touch him. Whoever wanted a lifelong mark in the face amguse, not me. We surrendered the fight and M-tick quickly walked away obvious to seek a buyer of the newly acquired asset. Hapa ilibidi Ron aende home aseme kilichojiri at least mzazi aka make follow up which made my parents know that I had gone to Khalaba much to their annoyance. Buda ya Ron next day hadi kwa mama m-tick with us in tow. Kesi ilifanywa, Scorpion anapingana, the mother to solve it promised to pay the phone but we all knew she couldn’t. We proposed going to report to the police station but police cases and the fact that we were going to school in a few weeks’ time made it a defeatist move. At the end of the saga, I felt defeated and swore to revenge the loss even if it meant poisoning the nigger. We tried to seek ways of exerting revenge on the nigger and failed to find one that we could get away with smoothly. After that incidence we were put on strict watch and could only play football as our movements were significantly curtailed.
After like two days there was a funeral in the next village which was Scorpion’s village and one aspect that accompanies funerals in the village was disco matanga aka disco vumbi where villagers are treated to free music the entire night. From the funeral we saw an opportunity since it was well known the ruffian never misses disco vumbi. The disco matanga culture is used to serves as a source of entertainment to the mourners as well as helping raise funds to bury the dead. It is more of a profession back home to the extent that there are career emcees whose job is “kuchangisha pesa kwa matanga”. The better the Emcee, the higher the level of contribution and so forth and more funeral parties hired them. So we came with a plan to teach him a lesson that would linger in his memory for a better part of his life. That day we prepared quality rungus from the guava tree knowing the magnitude of the threat in question. At nightfall we were to sneak out of our ‘simba’ into the disco matanga as a four man gang, accomplish the mission and retreat back to our simbas. However, come nightfall, one of the team members backed out stating baseless that his brothers would snitch out that he had gone to disco vumbi but we knew it was cowardice. We were now left three and we significantly contemplated cancelling the mission but since Ron was very bitter about his loss he pushed us and we decided to go and try our luck.
Around the villages, the man with the best public address system was [B][I]Sirengo. [/I][/B]His music was always heard across very many villages and attracted crowds from far as people had severally confessed to following the sound from villages far away. Since the deceased was a teacher, they hired the best, Sirengo. To get to the next village, we had to cross river khalaba although at a different location where there was a bridge and due to the blaring sound of Sirengo’s sound system, our voices were transformed to whispers forcing us to shout. When we neared the disco matanga we hid out tools of trade in a nearby bush and patrolled the homestead for reconnaissance purpose looking for weakness to exploit. By then music was in high gear and the dancers too busy to notice three new faces. From a distance we noticed our target seated near one of the speakers trying to woe a local kunguru.