Then came the classroom situation. My new school was like the United Nations. There were teachers from all over the world. There were British and Irish nuns with unfamiliar names like Sister Celestine, Sister Frances, Sister Geraldine, Sister Cecilia. There were Indians with names like Mr. Ranjit and others. There were Mr. Kayongo, Ms. Lule and others, all Ugandans who were former Makerere University lecturers who fled Idi Amin rule. Then there were the local teachers, at least I could identify them by their familiar Kikuyu names like Mr. Maina, Mr. Basani, Mrs. Nderitu, Mrs. Njoroge, Ms. Kibunja, Mrs. Kamiri and many others. But you could not tell who was Kikuyu or from other tribes. They all spoke fluent English with not the slightest hint of their mother tongues. I knew I was toast. I could not understand a thing any of them was saying. They spoke too fast for me to understand.
Remember the urban classmates I talked to you about earlier, they were so comfortable answering questions in class, even commenting on subject matter, meaning they understood. Not me and some of the other students from rural Central whom the Urban classmates referred to as “Coffee Pickers”.
Then we were welcomed with a movie. It was the first movie I ever watched in my life. The people were beautiful, their neighborhoods were serene and that is all I concentrated on because I could not understand a word they were saying. Urban students laughed their heads off because they understood the dialogue. I didn’t.
End of term rolled in and I was number 78 out of two classes of 80 students. That was my rock bottom. A moment of reckoning. I had graduated Munyeki an “A” student. I was a star student, always number two or three. I never got a chance to be number one because of one student who was so good in all subjects including math, which happened to be my weakest subject. He was guaranteed the number one position for all our seven years at Munyeki. It is not surprising he has done very well in life, currently an Executive in a big corporation in Nairobi. He deserves every success he has had because he also had the character to match his brains. He was a worthy competitor and I tip my hat to him.
