Some past realities and experiences….they rekindle memories and have tended to shape current life perspectives…. 

I joined high school when bullying was openly done and it is like government and school administrators had already given up to bullies’ tricks and stubbornness.

I guess that the authorities had turned a blind eye to the evil since it was very widespread and practiced in almost over 90 percent of schools then. It was almost like a culture and it is like freshers in high school had to go through a kind of initiation…

Moreover, human rights consciousness was rather low and Children’s rights were then not part of social vocabulary.

… Even when I joined form 5 in a Kiambu school, some form 6 students behaved arrogantly and used demeaning & unpalatable terms (one was mufuvu- I didn’t know what it meant) to describe we, who had recently joined form 5 thus practicing some form of silent, disguised bullying.

However, it is the bullying in form 1 that was really terrible. I and a few of my form-mates appeared rather small to be joining form 1 where we found fully bearded men mostly in form 3 & 4 treating us like kids.

Of course our parents were worried knowing that bullying was a terrible experience and cared; a mother to one of my neighbors somehow, immediately created friendship with a form 3 student – – he was called Mwenda– who immediately took charge of our welfare (we were ‘Njukas’ and all the others, especially those in form 3 & 4 were ‘Miakas’ including our minder).

Our minder kept my neighbor’s cash & generally took care of us including buying the then rare & decorated bread loaves and introducing us to the goings-on in the then Nairobi County boarding school.

Yet, our minder could not keep watch over us all the time and we had to manouver through the thin and thick of the new life.

One of the most terrible bullies in our dormitory had secured a corner bed for himself just adjacent to the dormitory prefect’s cubicle.

The dormitory was named after a mountain in Kenya and was the second in a row of four so it was that ‘mountain no 2’.

It was a spacious – – wide &  long – – I guess about 8 meters–width, by about 20 meters – – length, stone house with a high roof & huge gamble space and area, and thus had enough ventilation space where the rafters met the wall plate. It had wide windows after every two single beds. Beneath the window spaces were metallic lockers where we placed our mostly metal sheets boxes.

We each assigned ourselves the upper and lower lockers where we would secure our valuables including a then famous bread type baked by ‘Oven Door’ bakers and thus popular as ‘Oven Door’.

However, miscreants would still bend out the lockers doors– given the locking gadgets & padlocks were placed at the doors’ center – – to steal our loaves & other valuables during early night prep times.

So the two facing beds shared one locker unit thus establishing defacto ‘roommates’ in the otherwise wide, cubicles-less dorms.

And so during weekends, our dormitory’s terrible & tall, bearded bully would force I and a few form 1s to wash his very dirty, oily overall at an ablution block some distance away.

But luckily & often, good would often overcome evil and the ablution block taps would often run dry just a few minutes into the washing ordeal and the bully would be left with wet unwashed linen which he would carry away himself to ensure it would be clean in the long run…!!

Other moments during the night and when lights were switched off mandatorily at 10pm, the stubborn bully (I still recall his name), would come over abusing the ‘Njokas’ (also called Monos) and hanging around instead of sleeping at his corner and minding his own business. However, one of our form 3 dorm neighbors nicknamed 45, would always be alert and would raise alarm asking the form 4 bully why he was hanging around ‘Njukas’ beds.

 The dormitory prefect, also a form 4 student, would somehow ignore his form-mate misdemeanors but Mr 45’s noise and protection would win and the bully would return to his area of abode.

During the last Saturday of every month, all students would congregate at the school’s main hall to watch a movie but the bullies would still exploit the time to bully the’ Monos’ walking to the hall alone or without their ‘Miaka: minders. Yet, the last weekend of third term for form 1s, Njukas, would turn out to be the worst time since the’ Miakas’, especially form 2s wound use the chance to harass form 1s beating them even with wire rods claiming that this was a day for ‘promoting the form 1s (Njoka) to the next level (Form 2). This would turn out as a very tense and fearful moment especially for the Form 1s who had not managed to create rapport with Form 2s and minders….

In reflection, I am today very averse and hate with passion anybody who bullies others or tries to dehumanize other people or my person. I always try to be assertive and will never allow anybody to harass me or other people especially those that appear weaker than the bullies. At all times, i believe in assertiveness and speak out against any forms of bullying, maltreatment or condescension…

Perhaps, the maltreatment experiences i faced as a ‘Mono’ in a Nairobi County boarding school are still etched in my subconscious mind..

Perhaps….