10 Signs That You Went To A Kenyan Public School

 Unless you are among the privileged few that got to attend private schools and got to escape 8-4-4 and the woes of the common mwanachi, the rest of us spend a large part of our lives in public schools.

If you were in a public school I can guarantee that you can relate to one or two of the things that happen in public schools.

1# If your Nursery School had an accent you got an accent too

Accents can be very sexy, French accent, Russian Accent or British accents but not so sexy when you are suffering from a deep Kikuyu or Kao accent.

I went to a school where my teacher taught, me to emphasize the sound “th”.So  a sentence like “The Three thick thieves ran for the thick thicket in Thika Town” would send people into fits of laughter. I emphasized my “Th”until I got to high school and realized that “Th” shouldn’t be emphasized so much. It should be more of a Th as opposed to Th.

I also said “habhazard” for a large part of my life, until someone pointed out it was actually haphazard

2#Meat and bread were rare commodities

These two items were preserved for Sundays or Saturdays or for those lucky enough to be in good schools; they got a slice of bread daily. In  high school we often fought for this rare commodity and people “swung” loaf (Stealing bread from the bowl when no one was looking).Loaf swingers were generally frowned upon and if you were caught “swinging ” loaf your greedy self would be turned into a leper for a week until someone else swings or a “lesbian” “comes out “.

Scrambling for loaf

Meat was rare; in fact the most common type of meat was the weevils in your Githeri

Weevil,more like wee evil

3#You had weird eating habits

You probably devoured the following things, toothpaste, salt, eno, mix (Blueband+Sugar+cocoa) and thought were the best things since sliced bread.You ate because there was food or because you were bored.

4#Uniform was public property

Not by choice, but circumstances forced you. Your sexy uniform was probably stolen by a form four, so what do you do? Walk naked? No, you ‘shopped’ for more: Read stole

5#You had a weird way of singing the song “Father Abraham”

6#You had special clothes for special occasions

These were perfectly maintained clothes reserved for visiting days and “funkies”

7#Insyder Magazine was a must-have

Back then, Insyder was a Bible especially for high school Kids. You got to know the coolest schools, hottest funkies and hottest high “schoolers”. If you made it to the High school hottest list you instantly turned into a god

8#You had a nickname for most if not all teachers

Trust name the last thing you want is getting a nickname from a teenager. The nicknames were horrible not forgetting demeaning and were used when the teacher was not in the vicinity.

E.g. Mathutha for the bootylicious ones, Friesian for the busty ones, Jezebel for the evil ones among others

We had a teacher or was it a lab technician called KISA (knight in Shining Armor) who many described as Tall Dark and Handsome. He was tall and dark but handsome…nah! I think people were rocking their “thirst goggles”

9#Prefects were evil. Period

10#Teachers gave out ridiculous punishment

Most of these punishments were designed to either embarrass you into the next century, torture you into submission while others were just plain hilarious. There was this school where if you stole a mango from the mango tree you had to buy a whole sack of mangoes or if you “rukad fence” you bought a roll of barbed wire

Here is all I have for today folks. Do you feel like I have left out any, feel free to comment below?