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THE TRANSFER
Six years of primary studies at Kimu primary school had been a tough time for Mawia. She wanted a transfer that would see her landing at any private boarding school. She wanted to be feared, admired and respected in the village like the other children who had transferred to the boarding schools. Teachers who taught at Kimu primary school had already taken their children to the boarding schools. Mawia despised the fact that the teachers would perceive the system of education at the public schools to be unreliable, yet they were the ones who were propagating it. She kept pushing her parents for a transfer until one evening, when her father promised to take her to St. Francis Katse if she improved her performance in the end term examination.
Mawia jumped up in jubilation, knowing that she would make everyone at school on the next day realise that she would be going to a boarding school very soon. She would be admired by her classmates and everyone else within Kimu primary school. Teachers would encourage her to go and shine there, her parents would be proud to have their daughter studying at a private boarding school. Mawia performed very well with great improvement in the end term examination, and her father started doing the necessary preparations for her to go and start studying at St. Francis Academy, Katse.
So many ideas and stories about boarding schools had been filled in Mawia's head to the extent of making her believe that she was going to land in a totally different academic arena. However, the rumours were always being spread by people who had never gone there. They would say that the text books being used by pupils in the boarding schools were different from the ones used at the public schools, and that was what made the boarding schools to always perform very well in the national examination. There were also rumours about the severe corporal punishment for the pupils studying in the boarding schools. People would say that the teachers there used tough and rough belts to whip the pupils when they found them trolling on the wrong side of the school routine or when they failed in any examination. The same people also claimed that the diet provided in the boarding schools was always balanced, consisting of well cooked foods and omega three pills that foresaw the great performance of pupils by boosting the strength of their brains and thinking capacity. When Mawia was on her way to St. Francis Academy in the company of her father, she was anticipating to experience all the fantasy that had been filled in her mind by the notions about the life in boarding schools.
When her father's Toyota car halted in the compound of St Francis Academy, Mawia was appalled. It was a very small school, classrooms had no doors, windows had no glass panes as she had anticipated, they were just a open space with a square shape to symbolise that the window was supposed to be installed there. The doors were the same, they were doors without doors, just a space in the shape of a door. The school was only beautified by one thing, the extensive plantation of umbrella trees which formed a luxuriant, verdant green canopy with radiant bougainvillea trees climbing on them, their pretty flowers forming incandescent flecks to supplement the beauty of the green canopy. Mawia followed her father to the headteacher's office, carrying the necessary requirements for her to be registered as a boarder in at St. Francis Academy, Katse, a great performing school once located in the beautiful hills of Mumoni.
Days kicked off swiftly after her admission. It was not an easy life to adapt. Yes, she would be feared and admired back at Kimu village, pupils from Kimu primary would envy her for the move she had made to join a private boarding school, which was believed to be an automatic move towards the pass with 'flying colours' in KCPE. However, the admirers of her move were not there to witness the tough life she was struggling to adapt in the boarding school. You can admire the graceful movements of a duck on the water surface, but you will never be able to witness the struggle behind the paddling which the duck makes underneath the water inorder to maintain the gracious movement. That was the exact scenario which Mawia was facing. Diet was not different from the one at Kimu primary school, the difference was only in the sequence of the diet. They would take porridge early in the morning and at 10:00a.m, take githeri at lunch hour, with changes only being made on supper meals, more specifically on Tuesday, where they would take ugali and beans, or greengrams. Muthokoi rarely missed in the school menu. Dormitories were located in rentals houses, the girls dormitory being located at a distance of about 100 metres from the school. Textbooks were just the ones published by the Kenya Literature Bureau, not different from the ones used at Kimu Primary school. Mawia's eyes and mind were fully opened to realise that the success of any child in the 8-4-4 curriculum was triggered by personal commitment, dedication, docility and responsibility, not being taken to a boarding school. The notions about the private boarding schools that were always roaming in the village were pure lies and fantasy. Being at St Francis Academy or any other boarding primary school was not an assurance of success without one's effort and input in academics. Boarding schools only made difference in terms of teaching methodology and studying while staying in school upto midterm or holidays, nothing else. Mawia was able to realise that 8-4-4 curriculum is not achieved to the fullest by the genius, it is achieved to the pinnacle by learners who struggle, learners who are able to contemplate the essence of their presence in school, learners who cherish their strengths and embrace their weaknesses.
Mawia was able to fully adapt the life in the boarding school, though at a slow pace. She was able to accept the bitter truth about the absurdity of the fantansies that had been filled in her mind about the boarding schools. There was no special meal, there was no omega three pills, there were no strange textbooks, the only thing strange was the attitude of contemplation about the one's essence of their presence in school. That is one thing that teachers in the boarding schools illuminated in the minds of the learners, that physical presence at a boarding school was not a necessary assurance for success, what matters is personal commitment to their studies. Mawia was also able to make new friends and associate with new people in her life. As days went by, the life which had been once very tough for her became normal, and she came to love it. The school routine was in her fingertips in a two weeks time. She decided to put her mind together and focus on her academics. She wanted to prove to the world that being a woman is not a barrier from self-determination, decisiveness and excellence. Mawia improved immensely and progressively in her studies, she was able to show dust to even the pupils who had studied in the boarding school from the nursery school stage. She only faced one challenge, puberty experience and adolescence, which was accompanied by peer pressure and strange physical developments in her body.
The pinnacle of puberty came into its fullest realisation at class seven. One day, she started experiencing abdominal pain and strange flow of blood from her vulva. As a learner who had paid attention to the topic of adolescence in class six, Mawia was able to adapt the new life of puberty and avoid becoming the victim of myths and confusion that surrounded the occurrence of menstrual cycle in the life of a girl child. Boys started making strange moves towards her, writing love letters to her, and most notoriously attempting to touch her chest or her posterior. She was a bit confused. Her class teacher by the name Mrs. Daudi is the one who became her mentor. She instructed her to be strict with her life as a woman, but not rude to the boys who attempted to make dirty moves towards her body. If they kept messing with the peace of her mind, the school had rules that would deal with them severely. She would face temptations, spiritual battles would be her daily companion, but if she managed to stick to the ethics of Christianity and take prayer as her weapon, she would grow up under the care of the almighty God, become an iron lady and undefeatable conqueror. Mawia lived by Mrs. Daudi's advice, as difficult as it was, and even when she was initiated for the partaking of the holy communion, became a baptized and confirmed Catholic, she never erased her mentor's advice from her mind. She performed very well in KCPE, scoring 429 marks, which enabled her to land at Statehouse Girls as a high schooler. She was able to confess that even learners at the public schools can perform better than those in the private boarding schools, if they only contemplated the essence of their presence in school. Mawia was able to enlighten the whole village that all the stories that roamed around the area concerning life in the boarding schools were pure lies and fantasy. She urged the students to commit themselves into full realisation of being scholars, not just students, for a student just learns for the sake of passing the exam, while a scholar mainly learns to bring illumination of academics into the practical sense of life. A woman is a man without the prefix 'wo'.
Mawia jumped up in jubilation, knowing that she would make everyone at school on the next day realise that she would be going to a boarding school very soon. She would be admired by her classmates and everyone else within Kimu primary school. Teachers would encourage her to go and shine there, her parents would be proud to have their daughter studying at a private boarding school. Mawia performed very well with great improvement in the end term examination, and her father started doing the necessary preparations for her to go and start studying at St. Francis Academy, Katse.
So many ideas and stories about boarding schools had been filled in Mawia's head to the extent of making her believe that she was going to land in a totally different academic arena. However, the rumours were always being spread by people who had never gone there. They would say that the text books being used by pupils in the boarding schools were different from the ones used at the public schools, and that was what made the boarding schools to always perform very well in the national examination. There were also rumours about the severe corporal punishment for the pupils studying in the boarding schools. People would say that the teachers there used tough and rough belts to whip the pupils when they found them trolling on the wrong side of the school routine or when they failed in any examination. The same people also claimed that the diet provided in the boarding schools was always balanced, consisting of well cooked foods and omega three pills that foresaw the great performance of pupils by boosting the strength of their brains and thinking capacity. When Mawia was on her way to St. Francis Academy in the company of her father, she was anticipating to experience all the fantasy that had been filled in her mind by the notions about the life in boarding schools.
When her father's Toyota car halted in the compound of St Francis Academy, Mawia was appalled. It was a very small school, classrooms had no doors, windows had no glass panes as she had anticipated, they were just a open space with a square shape to symbolise that the window was supposed to be installed there. The doors were the same, they were doors without doors, just a space in the shape of a door. The school was only beautified by one thing, the extensive plantation of umbrella trees which formed a luxuriant, verdant green canopy with radiant bougainvillea trees climbing on them, their pretty flowers forming incandescent flecks to supplement the beauty of the green canopy. Mawia followed her father to the headteacher's office, carrying the necessary requirements for her to be registered as a boarder in at St. Francis Academy, Katse, a great performing school once located in the beautiful hills of Mumoni.
Days kicked off swiftly after her admission. It was not an easy life to adapt. Yes, she would be feared and admired back at Kimu village, pupils from Kimu primary would envy her for the move she had made to join a private boarding school, which was believed to be an automatic move towards the pass with 'flying colours' in KCPE. However, the admirers of her move were not there to witness the tough life she was struggling to adapt in the boarding school. You can admire the graceful movements of a duck on the water surface, but you will never be able to witness the struggle behind the paddling which the duck makes underneath the water inorder to maintain the gracious movement. That was the exact scenario which Mawia was facing. Diet was not different from the one at Kimu primary school, the difference was only in the sequence of the diet. They would take porridge early in the morning and at 10:00a.m, take githeri at lunch hour, with changes only being made on supper meals, more specifically on Tuesday, where they would take ugali and beans, or greengrams. Muthokoi rarely missed in the school menu. Dormitories were located in rentals houses, the girls dormitory being located at a distance of about 100 metres from the school. Textbooks were just the ones published by the Kenya Literature Bureau, not different from the ones used at Kimu Primary school. Mawia's eyes and mind were fully opened to realise that the success of any child in the 8-4-4 curriculum was triggered by personal commitment, dedication, docility and responsibility, not being taken to a boarding school. The notions about the private boarding schools that were always roaming in the village were pure lies and fantasy. Being at St Francis Academy or any other boarding primary school was not an assurance of success without one's effort and input in academics. Boarding schools only made difference in terms of teaching methodology and studying while staying in school upto midterm or holidays, nothing else. Mawia was able to realise that 8-4-4 curriculum is not achieved to the fullest by the genius, it is achieved to the pinnacle by learners who struggle, learners who are able to contemplate the essence of their presence in school, learners who cherish their strengths and embrace their weaknesses.
Mawia was able to fully adapt the life in the boarding school, though at a slow pace. She was able to accept the bitter truth about the absurdity of the fantansies that had been filled in her mind about the boarding schools. There was no special meal, there was no omega three pills, there were no strange textbooks, the only thing strange was the attitude of contemplation about the one's essence of their presence in school. That is one thing that teachers in the boarding schools illuminated in the minds of the learners, that physical presence at a boarding school was not a necessary assurance for success, what matters is personal commitment to their studies. Mawia was also able to make new friends and associate with new people in her life. As days went by, the life which had been once very tough for her became normal, and she came to love it. The school routine was in her fingertips in a two weeks time. She decided to put her mind together and focus on her academics. She wanted to prove to the world that being a woman is not a barrier from self-determination, decisiveness and excellence. Mawia improved immensely and progressively in her studies, she was able to show dust to even the pupils who had studied in the boarding school from the nursery school stage. She only faced one challenge, puberty experience and adolescence, which was accompanied by peer pressure and strange physical developments in her body.
The pinnacle of puberty came into its fullest realisation at class seven. One day, she started experiencing abdominal pain and strange flow of blood from her vulva. As a learner who had paid attention to the topic of adolescence in class six, Mawia was able to adapt the new life of puberty and avoid becoming the victim of myths and confusion that surrounded the occurrence of menstrual cycle in the life of a girl child. Boys started making strange moves towards her, writing love letters to her, and most notoriously attempting to touch her chest or her posterior. She was a bit confused. Her class teacher by the name Mrs. Daudi is the one who became her mentor. She instructed her to be strict with her life as a woman, but not rude to the boys who attempted to make dirty moves towards her body. If they kept messing with the peace of her mind, the school had rules that would deal with them severely. She would face temptations, spiritual battles would be her daily companion, but if she managed to stick to the ethics of Christianity and take prayer as her weapon, she would grow up under the care of the almighty God, become an iron lady and undefeatable conqueror. Mawia lived by Mrs. Daudi's advice, as difficult as it was, and even when she was initiated for the partaking of the holy communion, became a baptized and confirmed Catholic, she never erased her mentor's advice from her mind. She performed very well in KCPE, scoring 429 marks, which enabled her to land at Statehouse Girls as a high schooler. She was able to confess that even learners at the public schools can perform better than those in the private boarding schools, if they only contemplated the essence of their presence in school. Mawia was able to enlighten the whole village that all the stories that roamed around the area concerning life in the boarding schools were pure lies and fantasy. She urged the students to commit themselves into full realisation of being scholars, not just students, for a student just learns for the sake of passing the exam, while a scholar mainly learns to bring illumination of academics into the practical sense of life. A woman is a man without the prefix 'wo'.
