I graduated from the prestigious Kanga High School a long time ago but the memories of tears and laughter, joy and suffering haven't escaped me. I was just a timid boy - almost naive - when I reported to the school one February in the early 2000s, my shirt though sparkling clean was not tacked in the trouser (a capital crime in Kanga High School). Mr. Ragero, unknown to me at the time, asked me in the kindest way possible to tuck in which I did. He assigned me to King Class, and Athembo Dormitory, which I quickly learned was a terrible combination: King class because it shared a wall with the Deputy Principle's office, and Athembo dorm because it was the worst in the school, and probabaly in the whole damn country. As a new student in the school - and worse still, a fresher - I had no choice. It so happened that Kanga High School was hit by an acute bed shortage at the time of my admission. Believe it or not I shared a bed with another boy for close to a full term. The boy, though kind and welcoming at the beggining, soon became arrogant and harsh. He was later appointed a prefect. Tom Ngeri is now a lawyer or so I have heard.
Kanga HighThe Deputy Principle at the time was one John Billy Ogolla, an eloquent man whose command of the English language was the envy of the entire province. But Mr. Billy Ogolla had another claim to fame, he was a thorough disciplinarian who was equally feared as he was respected. A visit to his office was to be dreaded as to a visit hell itself. When he canned someone, the whacking of the cane could be heard from a few good miles away, and the pain inflicted would last a few good months.
My first two weeks at Kanga High school was uneventful though the food was horrible. It was the end of the two weeks though that still ring in my ears. "Slapping Ceremony" was an official school function where freshers were oriented into the school way of life by the prefects. The name of the event gives away all its secrets. It was a very hostile meeting where the form ones were given a taste of high school cruelty. It was three hour long meeting of constant beating for no reason at all. The chosen tool of communication was a slap. And they particularly targeted the big-bodied lads, like they were punishing them for something. Preojecting their fears on them. You could see they were enjoying the whole thing even though they tried everything to look serious. The big bodied chaps were beaten for no more than competing the school principal - Mr. Kaunda Ogweno - in body-weight. Just about eveyone was targetted. The Nairobi born softies, the village hotheads, the know-it-all chaps and even those who seemed to be only proud of finally making it to high school. Fortunately, and very fortunately indeed, I escaped the "slapping ceremony" unscathed.
My luck however ran out in the second term though when our stream (King Class) was singled out for indiscipline. You wouldn't guess why. A graffiti drawing on the walls of the Chemistry Laboratory that said "King Class voted the most hot-headed Stream in Kanga High" was the crime. That's all it took to provoke almost an entire school cabinet to wrath. With that level of emotional intelligence, or lack thereof, you'd wonder how they even qualified for the job. I had done the grafitti myself but my classmates never knew. They never could have guessed. There were many more worse graffiti and writings on many public walls in the school at the time - some whose obscenity and vulgarity were inebriating - but mine was 'carefully' selected for punishment. The entire stream was huddled into the prefect's cube and given a thorough hiding, which seemed to last forever. Then we were escorted on our knees from one prefect's cube to another till all the prefects in the school had had enough of beating us. Afterwards, we were made to clean all the toilets in the school plus the humongous dining hall for a week and I can tell you there is nothing harder than that in the world.
As expected, I lost a few clothes in my first few weeks in school and some third form student conned me of my pocket money - which wasn't much by the way. But this vice was not unique to Kanga High School. The age-old vice of bullying and theft was still rampant in public secondary schools. When we were in form two for example, a student lost his metalic box with everything inside. He happened to be a friend of mine, but when he narrated the ordeal to me - in Luo Language - I couldn't help but laugh. An entire box with everything inside! That's unheard of! The box was never to be found - which is another mystery - and poor Caleb had to go back home to procure another set of, well, everything. I can't imagine the look on his father's face when he broke the news. Maybe I can. I can see the old, gray man putting his hands on his head, his jaws on the floor, rolling his eyes to the back of his skull and passing out.
Kanga High School was famed for its exemplary performance in mathematics, year in year out. The Mangu Mathematics Contest has many Kanga High School students in its roster of winners. What many people don't know is that this good performance in Mathematics wasn't just a product of some good luck, charm or fluke. It was a product of hard work and passion inculcated from the moment you stepped foot into the school. Kanga was equally famous or infamous for mother tongue speaking or Dholuo speaking which ran across many generations of students at the institution. Also rampant was direct translations from either Dholuo and Swahili into English and vice-versa. A Forth Form student once asked me,"Kijana, you're in Form how many?" And I burst out laughing. It was a direct translation from swahili. Those who ate too big chunks of ugali were called "carpenters of food" - also a direct translation from some language. School outings or trips were called "chwadi" for some obscure reason. Form one students were normally called jowan (plural) or jawan (singular). The favourite meal was simply called "zele" or something like that.
Kanga like any other school of course never lacked drama. On one night, a teacher who resided in the school compound was spied on when making love to his wife at night. He had heard some commotion at his bedside window and turning to look, his eyes met a crowd of boys jostling for space to catch the best view. The story could have ended there and no one could have been hurt had the good teacher simply drawn back the curtain and continued with whatever he was doing. But he (should I mention his name?) decided to get to the bottom of the matter. He quickly jumped out of bed and stormed out of the small house, half dressed and ill-prepared for what was soon to take place. And seeing the fleeing mob, he decided to give chase. Big blunder! The crowd, made up mostly of Third Form students knew a thing or two about the terrain of the school which this good teacher didn't. Running towards the football field where an open ditch lay wait (due to ongoing construction of Kalonzo Dormitory) the teacher followed them. The poor teacher plunged into the gaping hole, suffering numerous bruises and breaking a leg. And that's why the story leaked out. For the rest of my stay at Kanga High School, the once vibrant and athletic personage was reduced to a helpless caricature confined to metallic crutches. The search for the culprits is still ongoing, or so I've heard.
I have never really been able to get my head around some of the events that happened in the school when I was in the third form. There were rumous that a leopard had been spotted in the school. And before the emberes died out, there were rumous that some boys had met a ghost in the school. The ghost or nyar kanga as it was fondly referred to was that of a girl in her teens who had been reportedly raped to death during one of the famous/infamous Kanga riots of the late 90s and whose ghost had haunted the school ever since. Then there was the syndicate versus the hustlers and the formation of "aketha" which wreaked havoc in the whole school and even Mr Billy Ogolla, strict as he was, was unable to control. Rumous of devil worship and Lee Ogechi walking stark naked from the ablution block to Athembo dorminary. Then there was the sudden death of a brilliant forth form student during the KCSE exams due to what was seen as witchcraft. The boy never got to write his final exam paper but still scored a straight A. Students cried when his parents came to school to break the news. I did not, even though I was at the verge of tears.
Rapogi Secondary School was a constant thorn in our flesh. I remember they beat us a couple of times in KCSE and MOCK Exams in a short-lived period of dominance. During that short spell, Rapogi went to great lengths at humiliate us, even going as far as printing books and pens with the inscriptions "St. Joseph's Rapogi Secondary School: Nyanza academic Powerhouse" and selling them in our backyard. The domination was short-lived, thankfully. The retaliation was served emphatically and effectively in in well-orchestrated operation dubbed "Rapogi Out". They have never made a comeback to date, and probably never will.
Mr Kaunda Ogweno was the Principle during my entire four year stay at Kanga High School. He was a bulky man with drooping eyes and slow sluggish walk. Students feared him like a plague. He was nicknamed "Zab". The story goes that he once mispronounced "sub-zone" as "zab-zone" in a school assembly gathering and that was it. From that time onward, Zab was his name and it stuck like a bad smell. He used to walk around the compound like a lion patrolling his territory and sent dread sprinkling down our spines. Looking at him, you could tell he was enjoying it. He always had a cane in his hand, you would imagine he was herding goats. He was too big for his hieght and his hobby of choice was stalking students who were sleeping in class during the evening preps. He'd tiptoe to class, struggling as he seemed to put one foot ahead of the other, desparetely trying to catch the napping students in the act. Rumours had it that he was having marital problems and in fact someone shared a website with the news among many students. But take nothing from this man; what Kanga High School is today, is largely down to the strong foundation he laid.
Kanga High School is unique in many ways but the one that I find remarkable is the naming of the streams. In many schools in Kenya including the Starehe's, Alliances, Mangu's and Nairobi High School of this world, streams are aither named after certain colours (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and White) or compass direction points (East, West, South and North). But not at Kanga High School. Each stream at Kanga has a unique name that it doesn't share with any other stream in the school. The streams bore the names; King, Elite, Conqueror and Governor, Sky Rider, Pace Setter (some have since escaped my memory). Other streams included Champion, Hero, Victor, Bulldozer, to name but a few. The school motto is quite unique also. "Excellence and Faithful Service" is not your typical Kenyan high school motto where "Education is Light", "In Pursuit of Excellence", "Only the Best", "Hard work Pays" and "Education is the Key" are all too common.
No prefect dormitory was feared much like "Le Morne" which many people incorrectly referred to as "Lemon". Its name was derived from a story with the same tittle appearing in "The Winner and Other Stories" (or was it the story and other stories?). Whatecer the tittle, it was a collection of short stories which was done as part of literature set books in high schools between the late 90s and early 2000s. It was at Le Morne where one Owino "Garang" (now a pastor) and the cruelest of the prefects made themselves a home. It was more of a torture house than a prefect's cube if you ask me. When summoned to Le Morne, the prefects would all descend on you like a cornered snake - and they were not less than six of them! The amount of canning that happened there was horrible. They would kick you, punch you, slap you and make you do all sorts of gymnastics. It was illegal, but those who knew didnt care and those who cared didnt know. By the time you left Le Morne, you'd hardly be recognizable. It is a shame that they got away with it. It really is.
A graffiti inscription on one of the walls of Oyugi Dominitory (Named after the founder of the school) reads in part, "Those who drink alcohol go to sleep. Those who sleep commit no sin. All those who commit no sin will go to heaven. Therefore, let's all drink alcohol and go to heaven." It's remarkable I still remember it. It is surely one of the indelible marks Kanga High School has left in me that will live with me forever.
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