The lemons had been thrust at us but what were we going to do with them? For the first time a meeting was convened and ran late into the night. The animated voices of boys from the classroom long past the lights out hour pulled Mr Ayoo from his wooden cubicle inside the forest. He stealthy walked back into the tuition area through the Eastern gate fully dressed in a long sleeved shirt under his trade mark sleeveless sweater but without his lack spotted necktie a sign that he had even pulled out of bed. Whatever time of the day and whichever season, that was his attire. Whenever he put on a black leather jacket you would definitely know he was traveling to Nairobi on a night bus, but should you see him in a suit then either there was a board meeting or new students were reporting to school. Read More
So that night he came armed with a walking stick, a very strange thing since the “midat” was always kept safely behind his seat in the office. He peeped through the window unnoticed by the boys who were in a deep strategy meeting. When he was convinced that nothing fishy was being discussed he joined in and stayed through the resolutions.
“So and so would go to Ulanda to borrow whichever books they could get from their girl friends there”, declared the chair of the meeting. Another boy offered to go to Asumbi and see what he could get. The Homa Bay brigade consisting of the two James and Edu Bokello declared they would get all that we needed from Homa Bay school. Mr Ayoo was touched by the ingenuity and the problem-solving methods of the fifteen sons of Kaggwa. This was going to expose Kanga badly before other schools so it was agreed that help would be sought informally. The meeting ended with a prayer asking God for favour with the friends who were to be approached for assistance.
Sunday night meeting was a time not just to display the acquired materials but plan on how to use them. Earlier during the devotion , William Oyamo having learnt of the crisis facing the class had made special prayers to God about it. This time Mr Ayoo arrived early and sat throughout. Mr Ogara, our class teacher said he would get us some materials too. Mr Ayoo listened to various ideas being floated only making occasional comments. He was particularly disturbed with a suggestion to ask our Literature teachers to stay away until after exams saying it would be disrespectful. It was finally agreed that they would attend classes but allow us facilitate the learning ourselves and only come in whenever they had an input and so it was that ….” Justus what do you think?,” Joel do you agree with that?” as James argued having read Cecilia Jupe in Hard Times as Jupe! You could think that he was Mr James Bounderby himself .
” Milton please read for us”.,said Ms Kaggwa during our learning sessions. She did not pretend to know since she too was learning.
Mr Ayoo was frustrated that there was very little he could,(the books could not be found in KNLS at Kisii while the British Council
Library in Kisumu did not stock such books either and his attempts in Nairobi did not bear any fruit either) he said that coffee would be made available at midnight for those who wished to study late. That is how other students like Meshack Ogweno Kiaye popularly known Ajos stopped sleeping! He would be found drawing graphs illustrating some strange economic abstracts that only Kennedy Mbani had some vague ideas about while Captain Dominic Odera would be mumbling to himself some “big” Geography words…”continental blanket of cosmic gasses, the great depression 1928,”etc some of us were pretty scared. The only blankets we knew were those ones we had on our beds! This one covering the whole continent was just beyond our knowledge as Chinua Achebe would have said about his egwugwus. He would then leave the class saying to himself “dhano ma unenoni ong’at malich ahinya, otamo wang’ Nyasaye wuon Oganda…”and stroll along the Kanga Highway sometimes as late as 2 am.
The zeal for success was contagious, soon some apedos stopped sleeping too initially lured by the night cafe but later with a genuine desire to study. The exams came and went and so was the August holiday. The school opened and our teachers who had participated in the marking could be heard whispering in the staffroom ” this is not possible! Nobody could get 90per cent in a.CRE paper set by Mr Ogalo Boi (he was the guru in CRE and was teaching at Agoro Sare. It was rumoured that the Economics class had proved Mr Kolwa wrong. He was the chief examiner in Economics and was then a very respected teacher at Kanyawanga. It was reported that Mr Obat Masira had insisted on marking all the Kanga Literature papers himself not just coordinating the papers as was required of him as a chief examiner after he was told that there was a Kanga boy he was had scored 96 percent.
The official release of the results was to take place at Agoro Sare High School . The boys requested to attend but were turned down. A Kanga boy would be distracted by unnecessary excitement. Mr Ayoo himself would not attend such occasions so Mr Athembo the deputy head master led the Kanga team . Mr Marwa donning whiskers staggered to the podium to collect a certificate for good performance in Kiswahili, Mr Oselu was a towering figure as he collected the merit for Geography, Ms Kaggwa adorning wine red dress and white high heels was a figure to behold as walked line Achebe’s ” a been to ” to receive the best Literature teacher award after Mr Kajwang had picked the Mathematics one. Mr Ogara had got an award for CRE , his class having beaten Mr Ogalo Boi’s against all expectations. Under his armpit was a certificate of excellence for Economics he had received for Mr Ayoo. Mrs Onyango had reportedly burst in a song when top schools had been mentioned “….,tera adhi aneye dala,..”. Her Biology had topped the O level subjects chart!
Fate, a loofness or was it ignorance had thrown a lemon at the sons of Kaggwa but the forty three apedos and the twenty nine sons of Joram had used it to make a lemonade! That evening the victory song was led not by Jeremiah but by Mrs Onyango while the dance did to start at the gate but from the assembly ground to the Kanga Highway.
