Chronicles of my childhood fights..our kids eat Noddles to grow up, in our time we fought!
When I joined a new school in class eight at age 13, I told my new friends that I had transfered from Duluma primary school. It was known for physical education and acrobatics. They believed me since i could do few forward and backward somersaults and also was a trained scout. Now in my new school boys went through an illegal peer ritual to make you join the big boys club..this was mean...t to change my name from "Kaiji to Mwiji", irritating designation I should say. It would also give me the right to fight back once provoked. The norm was that Mwiji should never be found playing with Kaiji, and if you think it wasn't serious just know that my best friend Martin went through the ritual and wouldn't answer my greetings henceforth. The rite involved thorough beating by the older boys and chewing raw banana flower (nkorombe). And so I persevered the horrendous torture to change my name from "Ka...to Mwi"... As i said its a bad tag so i can't mention the title twice. For sure my title changed after the rite but due to my tiny physique the girls in my class didn't take note. They were never part of the practice. One day Fridah called me "Kaiji" during a casual argument, and what followed was rain of heavy blows on her face, like those of the rebels of Tamir tigers who were fighting in SriLanka them days.
When my class teacher got wind of this despite being the best performing boy in our stream, Fridah and I were asked to till the 50x100 (4K club) plot with a Jembe. This took us two full days but i never regretted it cos it was the price that came with change of a title and gaining reverence from the big boys..I finished my part and helped Fridah finish her's and the third day we resumed classes. My second fight was with a huge boy three times my size, we called him "Ngacha"..for a couple if weeks Ngacha was assuming my presence and I thought we need a fight to build our respect for each other...so we organised with the boys and after the classes we went to the School's coffee plantation. Close to 30 boys made a wall around us to make a temporary fighting ring. I was the first to make Ngancha bleed through the nose, but after the fight I had lost more blood than him. The fight took approximately 20 Minutes leaving the former weedy coffee plantation looking like a playground. We had bruised even the coffee trees. My journey home was painful from body aches. I feigned sickness and missed classes for three days to heal. The same happened with Ngacha am told. We met in church on Sunday and sat in the same bench. Few months prior we had started partaking the Holy communion but that day we whispered to each other to skip the ordinance. We had just had a fight and we feared that we may choke for showing mockery to God by taking Holy Communion...I don't know where Fridah and Ngacha are nowadays...
When I joined a new school in class eight at age 13, I told my new friends that I had transfered from Duluma primary school. It was known for physical education and acrobatics. They believed me since i could do few forward and backward somersaults and also was a trained scout. Now in my new school boys went through an illegal peer ritual to make you join the big boys club..this was mean...t to change my name from "Kaiji to Mwiji", irritating designation I should say. It would also give me the right to fight back once provoked. The norm was that Mwiji should never be found playing with Kaiji, and if you think it wasn't serious just know that my best friend Martin went through the ritual and wouldn't answer my greetings henceforth. The rite involved thorough beating by the older boys and chewing raw banana flower (nkorombe). And so I persevered the horrendous torture to change my name from "Ka...to Mwi"... As i said its a bad tag so i can't mention the title twice. For sure my title changed after the rite but due to my tiny physique the girls in my class didn't take note. They were never part of the practice. One day Fridah called me "Kaiji" during a casual argument, and what followed was rain of heavy blows on her face, like those of the rebels of Tamir tigers who were fighting in SriLanka them days.
When my class teacher got wind of this despite being the best performing boy in our stream, Fridah and I were asked to till the 50x100 (4K club) plot with a Jembe. This took us two full days but i never regretted it cos it was the price that came with change of a title and gaining reverence from the big boys..I finished my part and helped Fridah finish her's and the third day we resumed classes. My second fight was with a huge boy three times my size, we called him "Ngacha"..for a couple if weeks Ngacha was assuming my presence and I thought we need a fight to build our respect for each other...so we organised with the boys and after the classes we went to the School's coffee plantation. Close to 30 boys made a wall around us to make a temporary fighting ring. I was the first to make Ngancha bleed through the nose, but after the fight I had lost more blood than him. The fight took approximately 20 Minutes leaving the former weedy coffee plantation looking like a playground. We had bruised even the coffee trees. My journey home was painful from body aches. I feigned sickness and missed classes for three days to heal. The same happened with Ngacha am told. We met in church on Sunday and sat in the same bench. Few months prior we had started partaking the Holy communion but that day we whispered to each other to skip the ordinance. We had just had a fight and we feared that we may choke for showing mockery to God by taking Holy Communion...I don't know where Fridah and Ngacha are nowadays...
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