The last hour to lunch was always a moment to look forward to. The first lesson of the day was Math and therefore detestable to me. The last lesson always had something that soothed and obliterated the affliction of the Math lesson. It was time to make fun and even get cheeky but unlike in class, with positive consequences and compliments. It was my time to shine being the naughtiest brat in that class. Music, Art and Craft, Story-telling, Physical Education, History, Home Science, CRE etc occupied this hallowed hour but with no predictable pattern.
For Math, I would always shilly-shally till Mr. Kosgey just gave up on me. Whenever he came round to mark my book, I would always tell him ‘I haven’t finished.’ All the while trying to copy what my neighbor had done. By then the teacher had given him a correct tick. The mean idiot would close his book and look at me with teasing eyes. I would pinch and dare him menacingly to report me to the teacher. He could not dare. Mr. Kosgey would then announce the end of the Math lesson and move on to the next. Anything was always better than Math. I hated Math, still do.
Wait till he said, ‘’ it is time for Story-telling!” I will be revived like a dik-dik that has been startled out of its lair. We would shout ‘yessssssssssss!’ at the same time dashing out to a shade at the corner of the school compound.
Mr. Kosgey, the class prefect and monitor would follow us with story-telling paraphernalia. Know what, we didn’t just tell stories, we performed them. Girls worn cow tails, shukas and jingles. Us boys donned face masks, shukas and held clubs like young warriors. I had a gazelle horn ‘vuvuzela’ and the other boys had whistles. Our teacher, Mr. Kosgey was dressed like a king and sat on a three-legged stool with a fly whisk. He spotted a colobus monkey head gear and worn a leopard skin. Sometimes we painted our faces with crayons. Since I was stout, I painted one eye black so I played a one-eyed monster. Thus dressed, we were a sight to behold.
We divided ourselves according to rows in our class and took turns reciting folk stories. The teacher was just but a spectator seated at the bottom of the tree surrounded by little wild-looking kids.
We loved stories that had songs so we could dance.
There was this story of a silly girl who had gone to pick fruits in the forest with other girls. They decided to shut their eyes so they could know who can chance the most ripened fruits. The silly girl shut her eyes but the rest of the girls did not and they picked the ripe fruits. The silly girl picked unripe fruits. They repeated it many times and the results were the same. The silly girl did not get the catch.
Soon it was dark and the girls who had picked the ripe fruits decided to go home. The silly girl cried and beseeched the other girls to wait for her as she picked the ripe fruits. The other girls refused and she was left alone in the dark forest picking fruits. It soon became very dark and she got lost in the forest. She cried calling her mom and a one-eyed monster heard her. He picked her up with one hand and carried her home for fattening to be eaten at a later date. She was fed on meat, milk and honey. She became so chubby and beautiful the ogre decided to marry her instead.
As she tended the ogre’s cows every day, she painstakingly weaved a huge basket. One day, when the basket was ready, she rounded all the ogre’s cows, sheep and goats to the basket and sung:
Whirl, whirl my basket whirl
Twirl, twirl my basket twirl
Round and round and round
Off the ground the ground
Fly home to mom to mom
She mourns she mourns
(We danced round the tree, blowing my horn as other boys blew whistles, girls’ jingles jingling. Our teacher just sat bemused)
The basket moved and twirled above the trees and made for the direction of the girl’s home. The ogre saw his livestock and the girl flying away and ran on the ground in circles, his head turned up to the sky, entreating the girl to leave him even one sickly cow. (We would run round the tree beseeching an imaginary girl in the sky to drop a cow, even the one with diarrhea. You should have seen my cousin Stephen aka Tractor perform this part!)
The basket took the now very beautiful girl back to her mom. She was welcomed home with a feast and owing to her new-found beauty and wealth, the king married her and they lived happily ever after. And that is the end of the story. We would clap our hands and ululate for the heroine girl.
Another group will recite a different story. My favorite was the tale of a girl and an ogre suitor:
‘’Once upon a time, there lived a girl who was so beautiful but vain. She rejected all the suitors in that village till all girls of her age were married off. One day, there was a dance in the village and all the girls turned up. She decided to attend the dance too. All the girls had male dancing partners except her because she had despised all her suitors. That day, the ogre came looking so dapper he passed for a human being. The beautiful vain girl fell for him. All the girls knew he was an ogre except her. When the dance was over, all the girls and their partners retired home. The beautiful girl eloped with the ogre aboard his motorbike.
They rode to the forest. The girl thought her new husband was just from a distant village across the forest. As they rode deep into the forest, the ogre threw his shoes away. Seated on the back of the motorbike, the girl asked him, “husband, why are you throwing your shoes away?” The ogre replied, “ I have so many pairs at home!”. After awhile, as they got deeper into the forest, the ogre removed his hat and threw it away. The girl asked him why he was throwing it away and he replied that he had a lot of hats at home.
Deeper into the forest, the ogre removed his shirt and threw it away. Exposed was his hairy body. The girl asked him why he was so hairy; the ogre replied that he needed the hairs to fight the cold in the forest. As the forest got thicker, the ogre removed his trouser. Exposed was his long tail, the girl was so scared she lost her speech. They alighted from the motorbike and entered his house. There were a lot of human skulls lying around his house and the girl knew she will be eaten.
She spend that night with the ogre. In the morning, the ogre boiled water in a big cauldron and the girl knew she will be boiled and eaten that day. The ogre left the house to look for other ogres to feast on her. The girl remembered a song she was taught by her former boyfriend, Kwirindit, which she had jilted. She sung:
Kwirindit o Kwirindit
Come hither o Kiwirindit
Kwirindit o Kwirindit
Come hither o Kwirindit
The girl heard Kiwirindit singing in a distance:
Kwirindit o Kwindirit
Who is calling me Kwirindit
Is it an ogre o Kwirindit
Kwirindit o Kwirindit
The girl sang:
Kwirindit o kwirindit
It’s is me o Kwirindit
With an ogre o Kwirindit
They will eat me Kwirindit
Kwirindit o Kwirindit
As the girl sang, so many ogres bolted into the house, growling with long brown teeth. One could be heard saying he will have the leg, another said he wanted an arm, another said the intestines, yet another wanted the tits. The girl was so terrified she fainted. In that instant, her former boyfriend Kwirindit emerged from the rooftop and hurled all the ogres into the boiling cauldron.
She picked the beautiful girl, drove all the ogre’s cattle and went home to a huge wedding feast . The villagers made him a king and they lived happily ever after!
And that is the end of my story.
The way I recited this story and the way the girls danced would have obviously landed me a theater role in Broadway. But then, Rotik Primary School, P.O Box 2 Ndanai was in the middle of nowhere.
The story telling session gave way to reciting riddles. Here, a pupil will pose a riddle thus:
I am posing a riddle!
We will respond:
Ichoo!
And the poser will go ahead to pose a riddle like:
I have a house without a door
We will look to unravel the riddle.
Someone will get the answer as ‘an egg’.
If we missed the answer, we will ‘give cows’ to the poser of the riddle. The cows were in form of spitting little showers to the poser (spitting on someone affectionately is a blessing ritual in Kipsigis culture).When he/she has had enough ‘cows’, she would then give an answer.
There were so many riddles:
Riddle: my bull that lifts a hill
Answer: Mushroom
Riddle: it is here and it is there
Answer: the swallow
Riddle: I hit a girl called Chelang’at and her bones stuck out
Answer: a bicycle
Riddle: I threw away my club and the world was in echoes
Answer: wails
Riddle: rattles and squabbles in hell
Answer: a rat
Riddle: a box in the sky
Answer: an airplane
Riddle: a man descending from the hill with long legs
Answer: rain
Riddle: my house with only one pillar
Answer: a mushroom
Riddle: he writes doodles in the ridge
Answer: a hare
The bell for lunch would ring and we will sadly part with our paraphernalia, our teacher and run home for lunch. The following day always had its surprises, for our teacher was as creative as any Broadway impresario. Believe you me, Mr. Kosgey was a creative legend!
(Do you have any riddles in mind? Write them down here and I will try to unravel them)
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