Bullying in schools

I don't judge those who drop out of school...I always just pray that they discover their hidden strengths and bounce back. When I was admitted to St. Mary's School Yala on 04/02/2002 I wasn't enthusiastic from the word go. My dream school had been Kanga School and I always felt that Saints came on my way.

My first day in High school was horrible...I was the first kid in my lot to be punished for noise making (the first day) along with my childhood friend Denis Ongech. My Geography teacher punished me the third day for not covering my book and never allowed me into any of her sessions thereafter...where were we supposed to get the covers from in the first place ? It wasn't in the calling letter.

My Mathematics teacher pounced on me on the fourth day of schooling...gave me a jab for counting imaginary beards in his class; to me it was very unfair and this made me to hate the teacher and anything Mathematics forever.

Before the end of the week I had received another slap for asking a question during an English lesson. Our teacher of English, like many teachers (especially female) believed that monos were only to be seen and not be heard. My crime here was my failure to look at her lips while she was dictating notes...friends like Allan Odhiambo, Jesse Ochanda and Eric Ochieng (to mention but a few) must have been real geniuses to be able to read a teacher's lips while writing at the same time.

My first dormitory assembly was horrible...together with Christopher we were arraigned before the supreme court of Annex House for failing to give a F4 salt. Were we supposed to turn urea in our urine into salt? We hadn't come with any...and we had to air bedding for a few candidates for the next fortnight.
And this minute form 3 bully, Calisto, broke my blue basin with my first step in to Annex...I have never slapped anyone the way I did Calisto...and the rest of the senior boys earmarked me from Day one.

The series of events was scary for a lad who never belonged to this great school in the first place. When my class Secretary maliciously left out our names in the list of dining tables, and I had to live on bread and cold power for a week, I said to myself that enough was enough and started becoming rebellious. But how could the tiny me put a fight against those big rugby carbage heads whose words couldn't be challenged even by the principal, who feared losing them to rugby power houses like Karch and Saints Nairobi?

With my closest friend and cousin Kevin G Oluoch, we decided to plan an escape from this Sorbibo. When our plans failed, I decided to kill myself but never shared with Kevin. I went on hunger strike and collapsed one chilly morning after only 12 days without food and water...I almost lost my dreams, friends, family and, above all, my precious life.

I found myself at Sega Cottage Hospital and was informed that I had been in a corma from Saturday...this was Wednesday. I had to stay in hospital for another week, and went back to school immediately after being discharged from hospital.
I found when examinations were already on, and at the end of it became position 199 out of 205 (wasn't used to going beyond 10). This really discouraged me.
When we reported in second term, my Biology teacher beat me up for not performing well the previous term,
Physics teacher punished me for bad performance and the History teacher who doubled as the deputy headteacher made us to take care of his compound a whole week for scoring less than 75% the previous term. I became sick again and I had to be admitted again. I couldn't take it anymore and had to drop out of school. My father couldn't take it and gave me a beating that I will never forget. Just at F1 I was already a school drop out...
Stay tuned...the great Ambira is loading...