So you Form Fours are doing Exams? How soon! Well, best of luck. And it ends there. Lorot Son of the Hills can’t help you beyond that, am sorry. It is some tough talk but that is it! And please it irritates me when you have like 57 Success Cards and I have none save for the one I "engineered" to be sent to me by none other than myself and everytime in class you are playing them! Am sure it irritates you too.
Mmmmh. K.C.S.E. Reminds me of one of my colleagues. This guy was the timekeeper in St. Kizitos Hostel. We nicknamed him Kamnyama or Ritually Tatooed. How those two names came to be is a note for another day. He always slept at 11 p.m. and woke up at 3.00 a.m for his morning preps. He never missed any class. If he was not reading he was going to the loo or eating or playing (games were compulsory). Mock Exams and the chap has a C-! We are in our little cubicles in the hostel. Our chap is frustrated, hands in the head, lost in his own world of frustrations. Ritually Tatooed finally raises his hands as if on supplication and says:
“Wazee, nani hajui sisomangi. Nani? Mimi nalala saa tano naamka saa tisa kusoma. Kwetu tunakula sokorya( that is wild vegetables that grows behind the hills on some tree called akoretee). Sasa hii C- nifanyeje sasa?”
Our school wag, Lopisto quips:
“Umetesa hii akili yako sana kamnyama! Wacha ipumzike. Saa tisa, saa tano, vitabu vitabu…hata mpaka imechoka”
So much for the Kamnyama/Ritually Tatooed/Lopisto storyline.
Enter CHEMISTRY PRACTICALS. Lorot Son of the Hills is in the lab, as usual looking sharp as ever but Chemistry was always a nightmare. Somebody introduced mole concept, molarity and titration and after sipping generous amounts of acids and breaking dozens of burettes, I look far how I come and I say: Lorot Son of the Hills, it shall be well with you, if you survived that you can survive anything.
But I never survived K.C.S.E Chemistry practicals. I read through the paper and told myself: Today I will be true or false. First, I never saw the boiling tubes in their rack.
I raised my hand and shouted:
“Sir, I don’t have boiling tubes with me”. My Chemistry teacher walked slowly towards me and showed me a set of more than 12 boiling tubes carefully laid some inches before me. He said: Lorot, don’t be stupid, what are these?
I said:
“Boiling tubes, sir”
He said:
“ Use your eyes young man. Use your eyes. Next you will ask me you don’t have the question paper!”
I take that as some form of morning greetings and move on. I pick a “substance” ( in Chemistry, they call it substance, I don’t know why) burn it then read the question. The question wants me to fill the colour of the flame. But the substance is already burnt! Now, Tororot God of the Rising Sun, what colour was that flame? Red, orange, purple, purple blue, light orange indigo, yellow orange, orange yellow? I maintain my sharpness. Trust Lorot Son of the Hills. I burn the “substance again” and see what flame it “appears” to have been. Next question.
Next question, I follow simple instructions of mixing this chemical and that. And what colour do I get? Blue. But I look around the laboratory and see purple, purple, purple, purple. And am thinking: Is it possible for me to be right and the whole class to be wrong? No way. I try again. Colour? Blue. Heck! By the Hill of Kacheliba, what is wrong with me? I try one more last time. Colour? Blue. I write in my answer script: Purple. And I proceed to draw a graph. I have no correct data so I “extend my eyes towards the direction of my neighbor as if I am about to find an answer to all world problems” and see the range of his figures. Then I proceed to draw a graph that looks like the back of a tetanus-infested roaming dog. I feel bad but that is just it. 5 minutes to time and there are a couple of “substances” I haven’t burnt, at least 3 clean pages that require filling in. I don’t care now. I noisily write a title to my graph, arrange my papers well and give a smile to the sharpest mind in Chemistry in my class. He sees my pseudo-confidence and he almost panicks. I laugh inside myself and say: If only he saw the way I burnt the “substance” and drew the graph!
While outside I shout for all who care to listen:
" Hizo praco jo! Yaani hawa watu walishindwa na maswali ama nini? Maswali rahisi kama kudunga pano. That was the cheapest paper ever!"
P.s.
All the best K.C.S.E candidates in Kenya. Especially those behind the hills: Kacheliba Secondary School, St. Comboni Amakuriat, Riwo, Konyao. And those adjacent to the hills: Chewo, Naso, Tar, Kape, Oruu and others. Mpite mtihani mpaka mshangae wenyewe!
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