Close your books; let’s have some staffroom gossip

Want some bit of staffroom gossip? WERE WA’SHITSESWA has lots of it.

Last Monday, Joyce Makongolo called the principal. She called the principal to lament that her son was being savaged and denied constitutional rights and freedoms. Said her son should never be canned, nor slapped, nor kicked, nor be frowned at. That her son, second born, was no donkey for the school. And so the principal is very cross.

The principal is very cross — with you.

Joyce, wife to the late councillor, said that next time she heard any such complaint from her son, she is sure gonna take matters into her hands. You don't want Joyce to do that, do you?

Well, some introductions.

Joyce is the area nominated county rep (she got 16 votes compared to the winner’s 1,632). Joyce has been donating goodies to the school since her nomination and has already vowed to bring condoms if the Bill goes through. Very economical with reason and last time I checked, she wanted to upgrade a school into a college while still retaining the entire staff.

Allan, on the other hand, is a bright student who sits at the back bench of Form Two South. His brightness starts and stops in the dining hall. In class, Allan is a genius in failure, and last term you had to spare eight teaching weeks just encouraging him to accept that his name must always start with a capital letter. In the process, before your giving up, you used some non-diplomacy, and he did not get it funny. Allan is Joyce's second born.

Now you see why this thing is a tough thing?

The principal — who is in charge of your hire, tire, and fire — is cross. The principal, who wants the school a beneficiary of well-wishing, is mad. How can you, the small person, mess up the fortunes of the institution?

“But you gave him punishment when you knew whose son he was! You have destroyed us, and this we cannot accept.” That’s what you were told in that court where the judge is the plaintiff too.

Boss, they cannot accept this! What? What then?

You have been here for the last seven months and life’s been somehow better. You now have a handkerchief and you bought a new ex-UK phone. You have come to know the price of an egg and you now know that Sidika is a person while sticker is a leaflet.

These days you brush your shoes at the shoe-shiner’s and there are already some lipstick eyes looking at you suggestively whenever you pass by the salon downtown.  

You think of where you’ve come from. Hard days of unsuccessful tarmac-ing and bitter eyes from matatu touts who think money is plucked from some avocado tree at home. Dragging nights on empty stomach. Hide-and-seek games with the landlord who does not speak your language. No, sir; you don’t wanna go back there.

Number One should not get mad this way. It was only a little slap on the cheek, and little slaps on the cheek are known to do miracles these sides. Shh, it happens.

Getting a job is anything but Pampers’ business. You also want to be in the same position as others. You want to look Safaricom in the eye and smile. There are bills to pay and bribes to give and someone’s daughter to spoil. There are those young ones who have introduced your name in some nursery school registries and you don’t want to meet the children’s rights officers a second time. There is an aunt who wants a lesso and an uncle who says you should complete the dowry your father failed to finalise.  

For a second, you look at the bunch of books on your desk and you get angrier. Inside those books are sentences written breaking the very rules you've been parroting about. Inside those books are names of cities, teachers, village elders, rapists . . . all starting with small letters while the writers are somewhere near a canteen or dozing in another lesson.

But you should not slap. The mother of Allan says that even a bad eye at her child is not allowed! This joke must go to the World Cup . . .

Just then, the phone rings and you startle up. It is mid-month and so the nursery school teacher of your last kid should not be the one calling. You fish the phone out and fortunately, it is not the madam. But it is Yours Employerly, and he wants to see you in his office immediately. In other news, you are back to home.

And Karma is a pagan.

Mornings of waking up on an empty stomach again? Just one pair of shoes for the road. Chilly rainy mornings escaping taxi drivers and anti-loitering police all in one stride. Days of counting cockroaches on the ceiling. No phone. No friends. No contact with the world. No eggs. No one even saying the fat kid she is expecting is yours.

Allan! Allan is the next client at the morgue.