Part 2: The Starehe of Our Time

Although Starehe Boys' Centre was a great school during the era of Dr. Geoffrey Griffin, its founder, the institution had its share of challenges as I hinted in my previous story on this blog. There were cases of theft and student misdemeanours in my time. When I was in Form 1 in 2002 for instance, I heard of a hot-tempered student who in a fit of rage sank a pointed object into another student's face. The case reached Dr. Griffin but I was not curious enough to follow up on what happened to the hot-tempered student.

Then when I was in Form 3 in 2004, we entered our classroom one morning, only to find out that it had been raided by a gang of thieves the previous night. The gang stole our textbooks and one of them defecated on the floor of our classroom.

On hearing the news about theft of our books, the school administration swiftly conducted investigations to find leads on who could have committed the heinous crime. Our classes were interrupted that day as some staff members and senior prefects ransacked our lockers in an effort to trace the thieves. During the investigations, a couple of my personal books were found in the locker of a certain prefect who happened to have been my housemate. I was informed about it.

While I didn't get to know whether the thieves were caught and brought to book, I vividly remember Dr. Griffin boasting that his administration had recovered some of the stolen books. And I heard through the grapevine that the leader of the gang of thieves which raided our classroom was an old boy of the school. So it seems not every former student of Starehe practises Dr. Griffin's maxim that says, "If you are given a coffee cup to wash, wash it cleaner than any other cup that has ever been washed before."

And then during my years as a third former and fourth former at Starehe, someone used to routinely steal from my box where I kept my things in our dormitory. My box could be locked with two padlocks. Initially, I locked my box with only one padlock, but when I realized someone was accessing it on one side to steal my stuff, I added another padlock, thinking the box was now safe and secure. But alas! Soon after I added another padlock, the thief cut through the metal holding one of the padlocks and continued robbing of things from my box.

I came to suspect the thief who routinely stole from my box was the prefect in whose locker my books were found during the investigations that were carried out that time in 2004 after a gang of thieves raided our classroom. But I didn't act on my suspicion till one time as my high school years at Starehe were coming to an end in November 2005.

That time, when I found my box had been pilfered again and one of my books was missing, I went to the prefect and cleverly lied to him that someone had informed me that he had my book (the one I had found stolen in my box). Guess what! The prefect immediately retrieved the book from his pile of papers and handed it to me, thus making me confirm he was the guy who had been stealing from my box. I however didn't put him to task over the issue that day as I was in a good mood.

Around that time I confirmed the prefect was the thief who had been stealing from my box, someone broke into my locker in the Study Block - the building where fourth formers had their preps - and walked off with my Oxford dictionary and some other personal books of mine. When I found my Study Block locker broken into, my prime suspect for the theft was the prefect who had been stealing from my box in our dormitory.

Unable to stomach his constant raids on my properties any more, I cornered the prefect one night outside our dormitory and angrily accused him of having been stealing from me. The prefect felt embarrassed and melted away from the scene without uttering a word. Shortly afterwards, I reported him to my house captain. I didn't get to know if the captain took any action against him. All I know is that the prefect was not accepted to join Starehe Institute in 2006, which in my opinion was a wise decision. It turned out my house captain also had issues with him.

My beloved reader, such was the sort of life in Starehe in my time. The school, as you can deduce for yourself, was not the kind of paradise that some primary school kids imagined it to be. Those challenges notwithstanding, Starehe was, I repeat, a great school. That's why it remains dear to my heart. Adieu!

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on part 2 of Starehe of our time, you might also enjoy another one on "Remembering Dr. Griffin" which I wrote two years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.