As a Survival Club member, I went for several hikes and camps. I didn't enjoy the hikes because they involved trekking through hilly countrysides. But the camps were another matter; I enjoyed the jaunty ditties we sang as we gambolled round campfires. We also teased commandos who wore stetson hats that made them look like American cowboys.
One tease stands out in my memory. We were gambolling round a campfire when one Survival Club member teased a commando I can't remember. Okay, let me call him Commando X. The club member teased him in Sheng, "You see the grandmother of Commando X - she grew thin and thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner until she disappeared!"
So much did I enjoy Survival camps that I wanted to be a commando when I got into Form 3. But I gave up that ambition, a wise decision because I wouldn't have withstood the gruelling physical fitness test conducted by the fire-fighting squad which Survival Club commandos were expected to join.
I left the Survival Club in Form 2 but after having learnt the following leadership lessons that I will apply in my future family, God willing:
- Rise early
- Be physically fit
- Ensure everybody in the family has a meal before sitting down to eat
- Create time for family fun during which everyone is free to tease each other
- Keep disagreements with wife and bedroom affairs unnoticeable by children
Later on in 2012, I became interested in memorizing the values and mission statements of Survival Club as they may have been outlined by the club founder in 1989. When I visited Starehe, I found that the Survival clubroom had been moved from the cottage we used in my time to a small room partitioned in an old classroom.
I informed Ken Ogutu, one of the Survival commandos in 2002, about the change but he didn't seem surprised. He just told me they used to refer to the Survival clubroom as the Bush Embassy, a name that amused me because it implies that if you wanted to go to the bush, you first had to get a visa from the Survival clubroom.
