My earliest memories of school are of a bitterly cold,misty morning on the slopes of Mt.Kenya, trudging to school barefoot on dew-laden grass behind my brother and my cousin both of whom were two years my senior. We wore no uniform and our lessons consisted of singing games and noisy recitations of our letters. For the ‘practical’ writing classes, we sifted soil and spread it on the verandah, whence we proceeded to show off our mastery of the alphabet. Once done, we called to the tolerant teacher for inspection and once approved,we ‘rubbed’ them out and moved on to the next exercise.
The high-light of the day was white lumpy porridge during the mid-morning break after which we spent time out in the sun playing and feeding on the black seeds of the ‘muthanduku‘ tree which we considered a delicacy and judiciously collected them in the dust.
Idyllic, those days were, and looking back,am amazed at how far I’ve come from such humble albeit happy beginnings.
Now am a graduate- engineer to boot!. The nursery school still stands. At least now they write on books and wear uniform but am happy to report that the midmorning lumpy porridge is still a highlight of the day!!
MIKE said,
September 2, 2009 @ 10:57 am
I LOVE THIS PIECE.. I LOVE THE DESCRIPTION, I LOVE THE EASE AT HOW THE STORY FLOWS AND THE EXPRESSIONS… I AM A POOR READER SO WHEN I SAY I LOVE THIS ONE, TRUST ME I DO… THE PORRIDGE HAD ME LAUGHING COS I KNOW WHAT EXACTLY YOU REFER TO.. WE TOO LOVED THE MUTHANDUKU.. THIS WAS A GOOD READ.. WELL DONE
Betty said,
September 4, 2009 @ 9:03 am
Wow nice writing dear, but how comes it sounds so much like what my dad used to tell me about his school hay days, all in all i cant relate to it much but in my nursery school days, i remember having treetop and carrots for tea break, those were the days….
mugweru D said,
November 6, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
The impression of a young mind is a well written piece that would win a nobel or a pulitzer price.However that u used to eat wild seeds shows that you are probably a wild chick-(pun intended)
However for an Engineer that writes peoms that an Obama+.
Am one but have never written a letter leave alone a poem
I wonder how a poet used to deal with theory of structures,organisation and chaos of material and behaviours of shells and plate.
But as shakesperes want to say “rose by any other name smells as sweet”.Once an Eng always an Eng.