There was a boy who sat across me in class in primary 7,he had a pointy head and it was fascinating. It fascinated me and sometimes when the lesson was boring especially during afternoons I’d unconsciously focus on his head and imagine how he must have been pulled out from a rather too tight exit at birth… one such time when I was in this trans, Mr. Owuor ,the GHC teacher called me out and I came to not sure what question I was to answer. The lack of attention earned me a siesta out of class that afternoon.
Mr. Owuor was the crazy kind,he taught us ..well he didn’t really teach ,he used to give stories not related in the slightest to what he was to teach. He also touched girls ears a lot. I didn’t like him very much. He seemed like the kind of men my grandma warned me about one day when we sat by the fire in her mud hut kitchen; I had visited her on school holidays. she talked to me of men who touch girls ‘things’ when alone with them. I was 12 going 13, smart for my age and so during his lesson I would put on a face of indifference – not happy not sad, not exited ,not, dull. that way I knew he wouldn’t know what I thought of him or if I was even thinking at all. meanwhile the other girls,the a bit older ones used to respond with vigor to his dry jokes..oh how they’d laugh themselves silly you’d think they were competing on whose laugh is best or whose will be noticed.
Once he made us write 22 pages on an unfamiliar topic in GHC. We copied the entire assignment from a text book. We didn’t know how to do summary,he had never taught us. Next time he came to class,he as usual didn’t come to teach but to collect for purported marking the handwritten textbooks that were our notebooks and to cane those who had not made the copies. Collect the books he did and so did he cane those who hadn’t done the handwritten photocopying.
It must have been in August when we were to sit our mock examinations and one of the giggling,loud laughing girls missed school for a long time. Owuor asked the clueless class about her. ironically ,he knew as we later learnt because he too stopped coming to not teach us. He and the giggling girl had a baby and so he had to run. Grandma said that when we allow a man to touch our thing then a baby is made and the man runs.
In primary 8 we got a new teacher. We had learnt to read by ourselves and so this new one had it easy. He was however better than Owuor though he appeared intimidated whenever we asked him a question. when I set the record in KCPE that year,I’m told he was elated and took the credit for my very good performance..laughable. I was a focused pupil,the only thing that distracted me once in a while was the boy with a pointy head who now sat in front of me for he was index 3 and I 4
Roses On Rocks 