Mrs. M

I would not be where i am at this moment if it were not for my teachers. I started nursery school and had Madam K,i just remember she was an elegant lady and at that time all my writing was scribbles but the lady had enough patience to encourage me to come up with a legible script. At least draw a ball and sing as many nursery rhymes as i could cram into my small head.

I joined class one and met the strict Mrs. M,i tell you my friends, you did not joke with this teacher. It was serious business. What is 1+1? You had better understand the concepts of what you are taught and implement them or else "fimbo chapa".

I remember this incident when we were in class three,there i was shaking at the front of the entire class imagining how i would kneel at the front of the class and all kids would be staring at me, if i got my multiples of six wrong.... well, you should know i had crammed for multiples of seven only for the pupil before me to get them wrong and was kneeling on the hard concrete floor at the front of the class until class ended. The counting i did on my fingers that day was phenomenal and let me tell, to this day i can recite the multiples of six in my sleep.

Mrs. M taught me from class one to class eight in a small public school in what is now Kilifi County. Most of our parents did not have money to take us to private schools but we went through this system and we are succeeding in this world because if it were not for my teachers,not only Mrs. M, who were dedicated to waking up every morning to teach small children day in day out with little pay,encouraging us to succeed,going beyond the necessary to ensure that we were learning something, not just cramming things, come today we would not have achieved a thing. 

Most of my primary life, i hated and feared my teachers in equal measure but what i realise now is that what they did at the time was for my own good.

Most of my teachers are not yet retired and are just fighting for a small allowance to make their lives better. I support the teachers stance because teachers are the foundation of a child's future.  

P.s if there any grammatical errors. The blame lies entirely on me and not Mrs. N who would pinch my ears raw for such silly mistakes.
Location: Nakuru, Kenya

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shake your tambourine

Sometime back around when mumchkin was about 4 months his grandmother, my mother bought him a pink and turquoise bus. The pink and white wheels make noise as they rotate and the top of the bus has a xylophone. The best recipe for music. Its like having a boombox right in your living room. This boom box, doesn't carry a rhythm.  At 4 months, I didn't mind the bus as much because how much music will be made. I asked his grandmother, don't you want us to stay in peace? She said why peace, I never had peace and she laughed, alot. She said it's my turn now.  Then we got more movement in our limbs and mumchkin rolls that bus and hits it against walls and legs and noise fills the ears and he joins the noise with his baby talk, loudly too. I think the talking is his version of the 'wheels on the bus go round and round'.  After a long day, you ask God to give you patience least you throw away the bus that has refused to die, despite being mistreated. In my sane mind, I...
Read more

Au Naturel

In the endeavor to give the best your mumchkin, you can go to all lengths under the sun. Read all organic blogs in keeping away chemicals from your loved one.  So I started reading about detergents to use on clothes and turns out you should only rinse your baby clothes in the purest water from the streams up in Mt. Kenya. All detergents contain irritants and should not touch the skin of your baby. Then i read about baby oil and soap. All soap isn't good soap, good organic soap is without sulphates and should only cost you an arm and a leg. Oils contain unnatural fragrances and additives and are really not oil but a derivative of crude oil. Now do you want fossils on your baby? An extinct dinosaur on my brand new baby. No no. So we discussed this difficult as a family and brainstormed for days and finally decided we shall have coconut oil. A family meeting to discuss baby oil!! The next hurdle, the ones stocked in supermarkets contain preservatives. That isn't natural enough so ...
Read more

The great big hike

Anyone who knows me will tell you I avoid any form of exercise like the plague. I am not athletic and I acknowledge I am very unfit.  I woke up on the morning of the hike that had been planned for the past month, which I had paid for, I turned in bed made myself more comfortable and had an internal dialogue where the majority decided I am not going up the hill.   Mumchkin's dad asks me "aren't you supposed to be going for the hike to Menengai Crater". I told him categorically, I am not going and that I didn't welcome any follow-up to the conversation.  At around 8 o'clock as am trying to come up with an excuse for the group, when am sure there is no going up a treacherous mountain since we are supposed to take off at 7.30 am and am already late, I log into WhatsApp and I see that the group has not yet left. I still don't have a great excuse.  Mumchkin's dad tells me just go. I didn't want to. I put on my big girl pants and got ready to go collapse ...
Read more