Please, don’t speak to the police in English

My grandmother Paolina (not Pauline) used to narrate to us how kids would steal her mangoes every time she left home to fetch water. At times they would hide in the leafy branches and await for her to take her second trip to the river and to upset their scheme, she would occasionally restrain from the second trip just to punish the brats.

She would sit below that particular tree, pretend not to look up, fish her snuff from her kaptula and snort it in the tranquility of the shade below. That way, the budding thieves were forced to remain perched on the branches until a cough betrayed them. They would conceal everything, including their bodies, but not the stubborn cough.

The cholera and heckling of the campaign trail are safely concealed in the branches of brown envelope journalism until a cough called social media disrupts the arrangement to reveal the rot. We just have to agree that in this era of social media, choosing what to feed the public on and what to hide, initially a prerogative of leading media houses, has been made a fruitless effort.

That which you hide will still get out. The masses choose for themselves what to eat. Do you remember the late Minister John Michuki’s death was reported long before he left home for hospital where he died? That’s the swiftness of the social media. If print media and others don’t conform, I see them being relegated to the periphery as far as informing the public is concerned.

We leave the Fourth Estate and head straight to the classroom. The news that primary school students attacked their teachers should worry everyone. We shouldn’t just cry for the teachers, but for the generation we are raising as well. This is unacceptable. In our days, teachers were feared. This created a conducive environment for learning. Nowadays, students share mutura with their teachers in the market and that is where the trouble begins because they now imagine a teacher is their peer. Again, I wonder what 20-plus year olds are doing in classrooms. These are bandits and not students. There should be a ceiling in the age of anyone attending school. These old men not only intoxicate the minds of younger students with bad behaviour, but also make schools a centre of drama and not academic excellence. Remember the late Kimani Maruge?

Though everyone has a right to education, those who come in late should have special facilities and be handled probably by askari jela. Alternatively, the adult education programme called gumbaru should be re-introduced and classes for these wazee should be conducted at midnight if the old students fear the ‘embarrassment’ of attending primary school. Such an arrangement will accommodate those who start school after marrying.

Now that I’ve touched on askari jela, the prison warders, allow me to remind you that the biggest slum in Kapsabet town is owned by the government. It is the staff quarters of the prison warders. Again, allow me to remind you that askari ndovu is a game warden and askari kanga is the homeguard, who later mutated into an AP. For those who may not know, AP does not stand for akili punguani, as someone once suggest. It stands for Administration Police. The worst sin you can ever commit with an AP is talk to him in English. Ask my good friend Mutie Jakom. He has a testimony. It is also important that you know that the first indigenous Kenyan to be licensed to do business in Kenya was a Kamba, who was given the tender to supply ginyira (tyre shoes) to askari kanga. Enjoy your noon my fellow hoof eaters!