Part 2: High School Memories

My high school classmates were very bright boys back in 2002 when we were in Form 1. I remember hearing one of them discuss about a Swahili novel entitled "Kisima cha Giningi" that we were studying in class in 2002. And from the way he was talking excitedly about the novel, I could tell he was finding it interesting. But imagine I wasn't understanding anything in that novel. Poor me!

So bright were my classmates that I had to read a lot to catch up with their brilliant minds, often waking up as early as 5:00 a.m. to do some private reading while most students were asleep. But even with my heavy reading, I still ranked in the bottom ten of my class during our Form 1 year.

Since most of my classmates were too bright to defeat academically, I resorted to cheating during some tests. This is what I would do: If, for instance, we were having a biology test, I would put an atlas on my desk and the teacher distributing test papers would think there was nothing wrong with me placing a biology test paper on an atlas as the two are unrelated. Then during the test, I would put my answer sheet in between two pages in the atlas and raise one end of the atlas in such a way that the teacher supervising us would think I was doing so to prevent my deskmate from peeking at my answers. But guess what! In between some pages in the atlas were bits of paper in which I had written biology notes for referring to during the test.

Fortunately for me, I was never caught cheating, even by Fr. Joseph Carriere - an austere Canadian priest who sometimes strolled from class to class to apprehend exam cheaters. Looking back though, I think engaging in such cheating probably confused me, for I had to be cautious not to be apprehended. Little wonder that it didn't help me fare well in my Form 1 tests.

Another form of cheating I tried in Form 1 was during English lessons that we were taught by an American named Mrs. Susan Moore. Well, I noted that whenever we read a passage in a textbook called "Integrated English", Mrs. Moore would ask us to write down the meanings of vocabularies in the passages. She would then mark our answers and record our scores as part of continuous assessment tests.

So when we broke for one half-term holiday in 2002, I picked a dictionary and found out the meanings of all the vocabularies in the passages we hadn't yet read in the English textbook. I wrote the meanings in small bits of papers which I glued next to the relevant passages. But guess what again! When we reported back to school after that half-term holiday, Mrs. Moore never asked us again to write down the meanings of vocabularies in passages in the "Integrated English" textbook. And I surmise she refrained from doing so after observing what I had done.

As bright as my high school classmates were, I always felt our class had only one true genius. That was George Yuka.

Unlike other top students in my class who excelled by virtue of consistent hard work, Yuka aced his exams out of natural brilliance. His main weakness was slovenliness. If he had combined his natural brilliance with disciplined study habits, he would have been an academic whizz-kid.

Once when we were sitting for an end-of-year math exam in Form 1, Fr. Joseph Carriere entered our class and angrily accused Yuka of cheating. He really disturbed him. And probably as a result of that disturbance, Yuka only managed to score a 63% in the math paper. Had he scored over 80% in the paper, he would have emerged top in that end-of-year exams.

I will always remember Yuka for an initiative he took in one class baraza we held in Form 2, two days before we broke for long holidays. During that baraza, he stood in front of our class and started describing each of my classmates. Because people at Starehe used to comment on how mentally mixed-up I was, I feared that Yuka would hurt my feelings by telling my classmates I was always confused. Happily, he said something positive about me, though I can't recall what it was that he said. That was very wise of him.

As our high school years rolled by, I bobbed up in academic rankings of my class. By the time we were in Form 4 in 2005, I was appearing among the top six in my class. I don't know if that happened because I grew brighter or my classmates became dumber. All I know is that I never did any kind of cheating in exams during my fourth-form year. Also unlike in Form 1 when I used to get out of bed as early as 5:00 a.m. to do private reading, I never woke up before 6:00 a.m. in my entire fourth-form year.

In the last term of our years in high school, I had the opportunity to interact with some of my classmates when we frequently met in what we used to call the German Room where I enjoyed playing chess with George Yuka. One Sunday afternoon while we were in the German Room, Yuka shared with me a joke about a certain man who sold groundnut near the gates of our school. That joke set me laughing. It really was funny. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to retell the joke.

When we were sitting for KCSE exams, Yuka regularly complained about the exams as we swapped stories in the German Room. Though I can't vividly recall what I thought of his complaints, I am sure he made me believe that I would trounce him in the exams for the first and last time in our high school career.

But alas! When KCSE results were released a few months later in 2006, Yuka ranked ahead of me in the list of my province top 100 students that was published in the newspapers. He scored an 'A' of 84 points while I got an 'A' of 82 points.

All in all, my high school classmates were bright fellows. That's why I told my high school deskmate Martin Wamoni earlier in this decade that if our class had been a school, we would have emerged tops in the country in 2005 KCSE exams. We truly were bright fellows, I included!

***********************
RECOMMENDATION: If you have enjoyed the above part 2 of my high school memories, you might also enjoy "Part 1: High School Memories". Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.