10 punishments that made school hell on Earth

Teachers are gifted when it comes to developing the most weird ways to ‘drive away stupidity’ from mango heads. Now that corporal punishment has been abolished, Mr Karanja would know how to make you plead and wish flogging students’ behinds was part of the syllabus. Here are some the punishments that took the biscuit:

1. Sleeping under the sun

Once or twice, you would doze off in class after ugali and roughly cut cabbages or murram (githeri). Sleeping in class would attract ‘panos’ like carrying the decker bed and sleeping on the pitch to be seen and ridiculed by everyone.

2. Uprooting tree stumps

Laughing at the discipline master’s ‘shrub’ could see you uprooting a 100-year-old tree stump on the tarmacked parking lot in what took three weeks with secret midnight help from friends.

3. Wheelbarrow na Kasuku

A mono being sent to look for Mr Fox without knowing it’s a nickname for Mr Gachuiri translated to a day collecting sand from the dining hall to the dorms 300 metres away using a plastic can and a wheelbarrow!

4. The shirtless swag/mgongo wazi

Untucking a shirt in some schools could see you spend a whole day ‘chest wazi’ with only a tie for cover. This meant you were the only shirtless student in the dining hall, class or chemistry lab. And it could just be your luck when it starts raining!

5. Eating mkate kavu

Sneaking snacks under your desk only to be caught attracted a session of eating two loaves of family-size bread without blinking or asking for water.

6. Chimba choo

Studying in remote areas meant any space could turn into a punishment - like digging pit latrines in line with rising school intake with nothing but a mattock, spade, wheelbarrow and a whole day. If not, you could become kanjo for a day, clearing garbage pits and incinerators.

7. Washing a classroom with ‘mouth water’

In some schools, you had to ferry water using your mouth from the river or well without swallowing it, to clean an entire classroom!

8. Go climb a treeIn some girls’ schools, making noise meant climbing a tree in front of the staffroom and screaming niko hapa! at all passers-by!

9. Kulima shamba

Most schools had farms for Young Farmers Clubs and food security, and as punishment, you were handed a hoe to ready a whole acres before the long rains!

10. Feeding pigs

Feeding pigs is not half as interesting as eating bacon. Ask those who fetched mabakishi from the school kitchen before the pigs came rushing to their Form Two feet and snorting at the wheelbarrow!