primary colours

i would like to say that my days in primary school were really innocent, but then i would be lying! i was a living terror to teachers and prefects alike.. which was worsened by the fact that i was a prefect too! sample some of my masterpieces, worked along with my best bud 'H'..

• school assembly was an open-air long-drawn affair on mondays. one monday during assembly i found myself near a school bus parked next to us in the back.. so i stuck in a twig in the tire nozzle and as all the air hissed out, i spread a rumor that the bus was gonna blow and in the widespread panic assembly and the first two classes were cancelled!


• the headmaster had a fish pond where he had two beloved rainbowfish, right outside his office window.. so naturally whenever he was not in his office his fish would disappear into two plastic bags that H and i had.. and poor headmaster never solved the mystery of why his fish would go missing and then magically reappear!


• this headmaster was much hated when he first joined the school, as he tried to impose himself. so one day at lunch break, while someone distracted the watchman, his car's front license plate was mysteriously switched with another hated teacher's.. no idea how that ended!


• i would like to clarify here that i was in no way connected with the girl's restroom phantom in class 6. apparently, during lunchbreak when there was a crowd milling past the restroom doors, the girls' door would swing open and a firecracker be tossed in, scaring the living daylights out of the girls inside when it went 'bang'. that was not me, i swear, i looove chicks! *snigger*


• in class 7, all four streams were in the same row, with huge windows on the left side of the classroms.. so we devised a clothesline telegraph with color-coded clothes pegs to hold messages and a hand-drawn system to pull the looped cable to and fro.


• when in class 8 we had these desks that had built-in door flaps and you could latch them with a padlock from outside. earlier in the day the Johnson & Johnson folks had come by to give the adolescent girls a talk, and hand out free samples.. of which a box H had swiped and hidden in the bushes as he was passing the pickup truck offloading the 'stuff'! since i was Deputy Headboy, i had keys to all the classrooms, which were locked at lunch. i went into our class, picked a padlock with a paperclip, and dumped all the free samples in the desk. the desk belonged to a tattletale who had told on us for talking in class before, you can imagine his face when he opened his desk after lunch, with everyone looking at him!


• same year a class 1 teacher had called in sick and no one was available to substitute, so i was asked to mind the class for two periods. i gave them some math homework and promptly fell asleep at the desk, only to wake up an hour later with half the class dirty and/or crying, and the other half running around outside getting dirty or about to start crying.. luckily the lunch bell rang and i mysteriously vanished after that!


• end of every school year we would have a last day party, kids could come to school not in unifrom, and there would be no classes, just cake and soda, playing games and stuff. H had gotten his elder bro to buy us some beer and cigarettes, and when he wasn't looking, swiped his Playboys too! the party went awesome.. we had kids lining up to take a peek at the centerfold, and/or sip beer, and/or take a puff.. we were legends! this was class 4.


• as a inter-class competition project in class 7, we had to come out with a weekly magazine, with full records of accounts and etc. we rigged the editorial board of the magazine (ours was called SPYY) so that it was our gang all in power, plagiarized most of the cartoons from mags no one had heard of which i got from my american neighbours (MAD magazine), copied reviews from Kerrang! (i was the only one who listened to heavy metal), conned local businesses to sponsor our printing costs, and then eliminated all printing costs by sneaking into the school print room when the janitor was out at lunch to make the photocopies, and swiped all the money that we made from sponsorships and sales claiming printing expenses with fake invoices we made.


• the final exams of class 7 i was feeling very restless, as was H. since he was the better sprinter, we hatched a great plan. we got this huge firecracker, with a fountain fuse that gave you twenty seconds to get away, and planted it behind a tree in the football field, just beside the school block. H asked to use the restroom an hour into the multiple choice Geography exam, scooted down, lit the fuse, and came tearing back upstairs, just entering the door when the cracker went off. windows went vibrating, walls shook, and kids started screaming like crazy. when the chaos settled down, i had all the answers, and most of my friends had a copy of my answers too!

High School

i loved high school.. it was tough, and yet fun. high school in Kenya was four years, grade/class nine till twelve.. known as Form One to Form Four. at Strathmore we had a pretty small boys-only student body (80 per batch, divided into two streams), but we had very high standards, and worked very hard to maintain the top three in the country status. the school was run by the Opus Dei (Latin for 'Work of God'), which is a prelate of the Catholic Church. The teachings of the Opus Dei embody the sanctity of work, and is for the lay people. being a small science-focussed school, there was not much choice of electives at the eight subject, board exam level, with Engineering Drawing or Commerce being the only choice.

we had some of the most amazing teachers there.. most of them being ex-Strath boys who simply refused to leave! the Physics prof was a passionate Spaniard who could cuss the color off a sailor.. the Chemistry teacher was an absent-minded Aussie who we nicknamed Doc for his penchant of mumbling under his breath and blowing things up with disdain in the labs. the Drawing teacher was a Southern Italian who regaled us with stories of the Mafia while he puffed his pipe and walked up and down the class as we drew. we had another teacher who was also Italian, and the wisest, most disciplined man i have ever come across. i think there was no question he had no answer for, and you can bet teenagers can come up with a helluva lot of questions! the Swahili teacher was a wizened old man who was five foot nothing, and with immaculate precision and punctuation scared the wits out of every one of us. the Geography teacher was also a national level rugby player, and we loathed him so much that we all did excellently at the nationals in geography, it was difficult to get his nagging voice out of your head while writing the exam! then the Biology teacher was this quiet bloke who we made so much fun of, that it was not even funny! some of the pranks we pulled on him were legendary, but that is all fodder for another post.

the day would be pretty hectic for me.. i could be found running up the street to catch Bus A every morning at 6.42 a.m., i was never a morning person. school bell rang at 7.50, and first class was at 8.05. two classes then break for 15 min at 9.45. 10.00 to 11.40 were two more classes, then there was a 40 min class where you could either go for Mass at the school Chapel, or else have a study lesson. following that was another class till 1.10, which was the most agonising class ever. the class before lunch always was. lunch was in the Dining Hall, where the food was above average for school messes. you were expected to learn and use table etiquette, including forks and knives, which was quite an achievment for the teachers cos we were a bunch of unruly teens! after lunch would be three more lessons until 4.30, with wednesday and friday afternoons being sports classes. after which i would hang around and play soccer, catching the 6.05 bus to be home at 7.

looking back at that period, i don't think there was ever a time i worked that hard. there were no free periods in school, so homework was done at home, and often i was up till 1-2 studying cos the system at Strath was pretty tough. we had 3 school terms, with an exam every halfterm (called CATs), and all six counting towards your final grade. you were ranked in four quarters (20 students each), and had to fight tooth and nail to retain your position in the first quarter in each subject. one bad CAT would send you plummeting.. i remember once in CAT II i had 85% in geography and was in 1st-Qtr., and when i got 80% in CAT III i fell to 3rd-Qtr. you had to bring your A-game to school, every single day. even at sport, everyone was a competitor, and you could go from regular starter to fringe player with two consecutive offdays.

all in all it was a good time, and even though i am hardly in touch with anyone from that era, i know everywhere the boys of Strath are, they are doing the school proud..

all hail the power of Strathmore School,
let all teams fall before us, let all teams fear..

my country, my beer!

the sassy one came by last week (it was her birthday yesterday, go wish her!), and brought us a gift that shall truly be treasured. she managed to find some liquor shop in Canada that sold Tusker!! for those of you who have no idea what i am on about, Tusker is Kenya's no. 1 beer, and in the one minute you read this, another 260 bottles of it are being drunk!

i remember when i was in undergrad in India everytime i came back to college from vacations home i carried cartons of Tusker.. relived the rolling savannah, the breathtaking Rift Valley, herds of zebra grazing, pink flamingos lifting off in formation, barbecues crackling and the crisp, fruity aftertaste of Tusker.

it brought back a lot of memories of the homeland, it's been nearly three years since i've been home. friends have moved on since, and i've lost touch with lots of them. life takes us on such divergent and twisted paths that we wonder if some paths will ever be recrossed, or if some steps will ever be retraced.

i try to rest my head wherever i roam,
but where the heart is, that is home..

The Constant Gardener in Kenya

ahh, finally a movie set in Kenya that has actually been shot in Kenya! John Le Carré's novel 'The Constant Gardener' has been adapted for the large screen, starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. i watched her talk to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and she was talking about how they shot the movie in Nairobi, and then in the Turkana desert while living in tents and stuff..

my biggest gripe with movies shot in Kenya, or anywhere in the Third World for that matter, is that the natives are made to look like a bunch of befuddled idiots, and nothing can be more galling!! this kind of colonialist mentality has to go! be it 'The Ghost And The Darkness' and 'Out Of Africa' [Kenyans], or 'Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom' and James Bond's 'Octopussy' [Indians], or 'Dances With Wolves' and 'The Windtalkers' [Native Americans].. the local people were in some form or another made to look either uncouth, uncivilised, or the villians or a combination of all the above!

we await to see how Hollywood's latest offering treats Kenya when the movie releases on Aug. 31st.

maurice odumbe

saw the shocking news today that maurice odumbe, one of the faces of kenyan cricket over the last decade, has been suspended for 5 years on match fixing charges!! this was indeed quite a surprise. i have had the honor and pleasure of knowing maurice ('mauro' to all) for quite sometime. mauro played for the AKSC in the kenyan cricket league under his brother Tito's captaincy for years, and that's how i met him, having schooled there. my father is one of the longest standing umpires in kenya (get the pun, umpire.. standing.. ;-))!!), and mauro has always behaved impeccably with him, on and off the field. always the smart gentleman.

he is known for his love of the game, and how he gives his heart and soul to the game. anyone who has seen him field will attest to that whole-heartedly. he throws himself without a slightest care to any previous injuries he might be carrying (as in the last World Cup), and more often than not he is turned to when runs have to be choked in the middle overs. his batting flair and ability have always been one of the foundations of kenyan cricket.

as for the man himself, let me tell you a small story. i know mauro through my father, and sitting near him telling various cricket stories during the lunch break for the kenyan sunday league. so, once the mighty springboks were in town around '98. as usual i was in the pavilion riding on dad's coat-tails! i desperately wanted to meet jonty rhodes and get autographs from the rest of the team. no amount of pleading with the SA team security was going to get me through. then i see mauro sauntering around.. "sasa mauro!! niaje beste!! manze hawa makopa wamenikatsia.. na vile ninataka kumona jonty.. mauro, si unisaidie jo?!" {loosely translated = hi mauro, howsitgoin'? man, i really wanna meet jonty but these cops are like pricks.. can you help me out?} so maurice odumbe, kenyan cricket captain, takes me by the shoulder and marches me past the cops, into the SA changing room.. walks upto jonty, and says "hey dude, here's a good friend of mine, and he's been dying to meet you.. you got a minute to spare?" by which time i was so excited i was buzzing! no matter what evidence you throw at me, i will not believe that mauro accepted money to throw a game. i will not believe that he will throw a game.

he has had brushes with authority before. he has been called arrogant and snooty.. but i feel it is his cockiness more than anything. he will always be a schoolboy in his heart, and will always cock a snook at authorities.. my dad has been ribbed by him in the bar after the game, but again, with all respect. he does hilarious impersonations of umpires and fellow players over a couple of cold beers! he has passion for the game too.. and can be seen spending long hours in heated discussion with steve (tikolo), kennedy (obuya) and ravindu(shah).. and his is the one voice that always accompanies wicketkeeper kennedy's when kenya fields.. pumping up the players, encouraging them more and more: "c'mon marto (martin suji).. toa hawa watu!" "well bowled thomas (thomas odoyo), well bowled" "yes collo (collins obuya), hivo hivo tu!"

i include an excerpt here from wisden, talking about the kind of man maurice is -
Odumbe has never been afraid to speak his mind, as West Indian legend Brian Lara will attest. The Kenyan, looking for an autograph, was snubbed by a young Lara in England several years before the 1996 World Cup, so he took the opportunity after the shock victory in Pune, to go up to the great left-hander and say: "A few years ago you would not give me your autograph. But now I am saying you can have my autograph."

kenya's next generation of players - rageb aga, malhar patel, francis otieno are all proteges of his - have grown up watching mauro, and been inspired too.. he has one 'Man Of The Match' award from each of the last three World Cups. so maurice, here's hoping that justice prevails and your name is cleared; good luck with your appeal, na tunaomba mungu akusaidie kujitoa kutoka hi balaa umepatiwa.

rallying flashback

came across a very interesting article today..

Michael Schumacher has agreed to take on the current rally world champion Sebastien Loeb in December's Race of Champions. The rally-based event will take place at the Stade de France in Paris on a one kilometre, figure-of-eight track.

Schumacher has previously avoided meddling in other forms of motor sports but has had a change of heart and insists he is looking forward to the event. "I'm really looking forward to it, it looks a lot of fun," said Schumacher. Promoter Michele Mouton said: "We're thrilled he accepted our invitation. Rally drivers will not want to lose to a circuit driver."

that sounds very cool, but what really piqued my interest here was the name michele mouton. she was the fastest woman in rallying back in the early 80s, and no doubt one of the hottest too!! click on this link for a quick bio. this is what she looks like now, trying out the audi nuvolari quattro concept car. this name takes me back to the grand old days of the world rally championship (WRC), when it was still about endurance and car conservation and not the trade plied by the speed merchants today.. the audi quattrowas the meanest sonofabitch on the roads, and it was driven by hannu mikkola, walter rohrl & michele, while peugeot had just gotten out their 205 T16 under ari vatanen & juha kankkunen.. and the strongest car by far was the toyota celica twincam turbo driven by bjorn waldegaard.. good old days.

back then the Safari Rally held in kenya was a 5 day event; unlike what it is today, it was over 5,000 kilometers in length, and it had the name "the toughest rally in the world".. still is, actually. the 50th Safari was held last year following the original format of kenya, uganda and tanzania in the route.. the driver who won was never the fastest guy, always the smartest guy. bjorn waldegaard, juha kankkunen, local boys rob collinge, shekhar mehta and vic preston junior... these were the smart guys.. while ari vatanen, hannu mikkola, walter rohrl, timo salonen & markku alen were the blazers.

some of my most vivid childhood memories of the kenyan countryside were of the safari.. we'd go and camp out in the bush for the period of the rally.. in vast endless savannah plains, with a single rutted dirt track snaking through it.. and a rally car whizzing in from the distance.. trailing clouds of dust behind it.. an orange sunset blazing above the green-brown canopy of thorn acacias that lined the horizon.. a herd of elephants somewhere in the distance trumpet at the intrusion by the turbocharged cars.. giraffe nonchalantly chewing away at the baobab twigs.. antelope grazing shyly, at a respectful distance from the road, casting nervous glances at the thicket behind.. where lions could be lurking, and hyenas behind them, cackling their evil laughs.. yes, those were the days *sentimental flashback memory of home*.. finally, here is a link (click the red tab on the left side that says "TTE's Images", then click on Safari) to some awesome images from the Toyota Team Europe (TTE) site for the '99 Safari, which was special to me as it was eth last Safari i saw before leaving kenya..