My friend quit drinking so he ‘eats’ his money

A few weeks ago, I attended funeral service of a relative at the Catholic church near my rural home.

That old little church holds dear memories for me, as it is next to the primary school where I completed my elementary schooling.

I have had occasion to mention that my attendance in what was, and I suppose still is, a Catholic-sponsored school was an act of rare boyish rebellion at a time of strict denominational apartheid in matters to do with education.

But this was not a matter that was uppermost in my mind at the time of the funeral service. Rather, it was the fact that the church looked smaller and a lot more cramped than the one of distant memory.

At the altar, where once presided the imposing figure of Remon Botto, a gruff snuff-taking Italian priest, there now stood a local young man infusing his sermon with local colour and examples. The church’s heart-shaped mosaic glass windows, which in my younger days lent it such an air of grandeur, now bear the brunt of the passage of years and are chipped in some parts while panes are missing in others. For a boy who grew up professing the Presbyterian faith in the old days, churches with a concrete floor and stone walls were not a common feature, let alone ones with mosaic glass windows. The tiny PCEA church a few miles away from home that members of my family attended had a thatched roof and walls fashioned from dry banana fronds and wild ferns. To break the tedium from a lengthy sermon, an old classmate and I decided to take a walk down the path to our old school to relive old memories and find out how it was faring all of 45 years since we imbibed knowledge there.

The old wattle-and-mud classrooms are long gone to be replaced with stone and mortar, a welcome nod to modernity.

A line of electricity poles and wires is also testimony that the pupils and teachers of Kiune Primary School have benefited from a lighting programme.

These developments, however, were not the subject of my discussion on that day with Cyprian Kithinji, fondly known to one and all simply as ‘Cibi’. We had memories to recount, such as having to bring with us to school every Monday morning water containers with which to water the earthen floor of our old classroom from a nearby stream. This was necessary to keep away the jiggers that plagued our lives and whose numbers were at epidemic levels in those days. That was always the first order of business before getting into class and even took precedence over the mandatory prayers at the little church or the Monday school parade.

We also spared a thought for our old headteacher, Sebastian Kaaria, he of loving memory, who also doubled as our English teacher. We all dreaded it when the first lesson on Monday morning was English, because old Sebastian firmly believed that the way to shake off a weekend’s cobwebs from young minds and warm them up for the serious business of learning, was with the sharp rap of a ruler or cane to the head.

Immediately after entering class and unprovoked, he would rapidly walk up and down the rows of desks laying about with ruler or cane. Nothing personal; the pain was inflicted in a most friendly manner.

Then he would repair to the front of the class, and after a ritual sniffing of tobacco, the learning would start.

What I remember most is that much of the English lesson would be conducted in vernacular, but that did not stop many of us from passing the national examination. As we left, Kiune Primary School and old memories behind, I recognised among those in attendance at the funeral service one or two old schoolmates. Like the mosaic glass in the church, almost all bore the scars of time.

Most of Cibi’s teeth are gone and the few remaining are showing the effects of chewing khat or miraa, which he took up after giving up illicit liquor.

The way he puts it, he no longer drinks his money; now he ‘eats’ it.