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Fiction
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A Tale of Exile
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The 4th Lesson From the Book of Mama:
A lesson in academia
The joyous faces, frozen in song, hands raised up in uniform choreography, stare at me from the electronic pages of the Daily Nation, Kenya's leading newspaper. I smile, slowly, a tad sadly, then with belated pride, still with a lingering sense of sadness, and finally I settle for some lengthy contemplation. Once again, the girls from this high school have trounced hundreds of schools across the country to achieve the top mean score in the national exams. I'm happy, one, because it's my alma mater; second, because it's a girls school. It nurtures the women leaders the country so badly needs. But this year, yet again, the girl child loses out painfully in the race towards higher education. I read that only 24% of 300,000 candidates that graduate high school make the cut for University. Out of that 24% lucky group, only a third of them are girls. That leaves a thousand mothers praying for their daughters to find a place of respect and success in life. It's an academic pyramid race to the top that leaves hundreds of thousands of young lives squashed at the bottom with nowhere to go, an embarrassing "F" emblazoned on their unformed lives like Hester Prynne's scarlet letter. It is this wide base of declared losers, their story untold, that makes me sad as I peer into the happy faces on my screen.
Precious Blood Riruta's national victory is no unexpected feat. They have always excelled. The nuns, teachers and prefect body triune that runs the school have perfected an A-student manufacturing machine. The way it stands in this country, national exams at primary and secondary or high school level have been the key determinants of the direction and destiny of one's life, and by extension, that of the candidate's family, clan, and village whose hopes and dreams entangle a young person's legs like a ball and chain. This is especially so in rural Kenya where the bonds of community still tie one to the obligation of existing as "We". I was raised in the "We" philosophy, my extended family pitching in to raise us right as part of a larger entity. In turn, I owe them success. I wouldn't have it any different. I know that for a girl growing into womanhood and into the expected nurturer of family and community, this "we" conscience can become an impossible burden if not harnessed by an individual, the "I", to realize their own dreams and purpose in life, and in turn, enriching the "We". I hope I make sense. I think it's best explained by one, Professor John Mbitti's remark on African cosmology; that "I am because We are, and because We are, I am".
Back to the excited girls in their green uniforms. I was settling down into that lengthy contemplation concerning national exams and my personal experience. You see, in this country, a young person learns to carry the burden of expectations on their fragile shoulders quite early in life. If they are not endowed with the savvy of navigating through hardcore academia, they will crumble under the weight of the national examinations system and society's overwhelming expectations. For some, this system is drilled and perfected in them, making them automaton A-students and the pride of parents, community, and their alma mater. The school academic machinery does not prepare them for the real world out there, For others, they just have brain, that's all. Passing any examinations comes easy regardless of the school they attend or the circumstances of their life. There is my sister. She could go to school under a tree with no slate to write on and still top the charts in academic grades. The thought of it makes me burst out laughing. The strange gifts God gives parents. One time, a little girl in a neighbouring village performed very well and earned entry to a top national high school. But her parents could not afford the school fees. Dad quipped: "How strange that God would give one maize and not give them teeth to chew it with." Lack of school fees is yet another nightmare that sends some rising stars spiraling downwards, expanding the base of hopelessness even more.
I stare again at the Precious Blood girls, and my mind traces its thoughtprints back again to the thousands who do not make it, the thousands whose parents weep with anguish at the thought of their children's future lying vanquished and hopeless, hanging their heads in shame when questioned about the performance of their children, praying to God to reverse the curse of failure wrought upon their home, villagers shaking their heads with pity at so-and-so's dumb child. A life so young, so early dismissed and decimated. Thankfully, the human spirit always rises upwards, against all odds. They will have to find the "I" in this jungle of "We", rise up above labels of failure, and take their place upon the winners' platform someday. The girl in the second row to the right, the one with the only pair of hands raised in a clap and tilting in a different direction, reminds me of myself when I was her age; always finding my own style and rhythm; questioning, agitating, provoking. Like her, I was once celebrating the success of the previous graduates, and soon, I would be a candidate too. The girls I leave behind would either be celebrating my success or cursing me for being a loser in a school of national winners. The screen shifts gear to "sleep" mode, and my mind's travel brings me to that day...
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The footpath to grandma's snaked in and out of scrub, gorge and pebble, the waft of green foliage clinging to the spaces in between and stamping every passer-by with the presence of the hills. They stand firm, as they always have for a thousand years, not counting the millennium before that. They have stood and watched the comings and goings of the children that claim Taita as their ancestral land, embracing them with every greeting uttered in the morning and every meal shared at sunset. In times of success and in times of failure; through celebration to mourning; when it rained and when the sun seared its pin-sharp rays through perched skin. The hills stood, and watched.
I made my way up the hill from where I could look back and see the sliver of grandma's roof shyly hiding its goodbye. Up and up I went, the inherited energy of ancient hill-climbers still bubbling with vigor right beneath my heels. I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd be forced to succumb to the forbidding terrain of the land I called home. Instinctively, I slowed down do a steady beat, up and down the hills and valleys, forgetting every worry I ever had, if any, forgetting the relaxing time I just had with grandma, she of great wit and humour that could have won her an Oscar had she lived in the US of A. Spending time with grandma meant laughing time. I mean bellyaching laughter that may lead to a few stitches to fix one's ruptured lungs and diaphragms. All this, and more, started slipping away into forgetsville as I headed on home where Mama was expecting me back.
I'm not sure I had any expectations of anyone, or of myself, except that I looked forward to getting home and resting my worn-out feet after the two-hour trek. See, it was January, and I was floating through a chthonic realm in my life, an in-between time when things can either tilt towards a catastrophic climax or a triumphant resurrection of the self. Everyone who has been a candidate in Kenya's national examinations knows what I'm talking about. Both the primary and secondary school national exams are a shattering, nerve-racking, cataclysmic right of passage that churns the candidate and sends the nation into palpitations every year. Upon one's pitiful brain sits the expectations of a million beings hoping to achieve their dreams through "their child". It is a lot to bear, and oftentimes, many heads snap off of shoulders that cannot bear the enormous weight of a community's expectations. After wondering about in the wilderness of life, some are strengthened by adversity, discover their life's purpose, and claim success through channels outside of the national examinations set-up.
Just when the first sweat broke through and made its trickle down my spine, I meet a relative (for we who occupy the hills are all related) who greets me warmly, and instead of continuing on with her journey, she decides to become a village foot-path breaking-news anchor.
"O, I heard the good news!" the relative exclaims
"What news?" I wondered who was born. There's usually only two types of news around the hills: who's born and who's dead. The rest is in-between. In-between news is the stuff that spices up life. From the sound of her voice, she was not bearing in-between news.
"O, about your sister."
Now the trickle of sweat that came from the rising noon-day heat transformed into panic sweat. What about my sister, and which one? I did not ask, for I did not want to know. Let me just get home and enjoy the limbo of my neither-here-nor-there chthonic realm. For when one had just gone through being a candidate, they "ate" Christmas, and then they waited for the results, and there was nothing else one could do except wait. Wait. Just wait. No matter what you did, you could never escape waiting. The Ministry of Education would soon release the results amid pomp and pain, pride and pity. Before those results came out, one waited. I was in my waiting period, and I did not wish to hear any news about my sister. Let me go, you village journalist, let me go!
"Your sister, O! Jesus be praised!"
What now?
"She is your father's child and your mother's daughter. Your sister has shown us!"
O, God.
"She was always like that. I knew it. I knew it all along!"
Silence. I suppose it's good news.
"Jesus is Lord. Ai! Jesus is Lord, toh! Please pass my kongrachuleshens when you get home."
That's when it dawned on me. My kid sister had been in the waiting period with me too! She had recently sat her primary school examinations which were meant to qualify her for high school. Well, my stay with grandma must have kept me out of the loop on national events. The VFNA (read: village foot-path news anchor) was quickly swallowed up by the bend of the road and rustling foliage before I could sing-song my Jesus-be-praised to you too. Another thing, Jesus lives in Taita, everyone knows this, and any of us from the hills can introduce you to him personally, any day.
What I did not know was the nature of my sister's results.
I would soon come home to a growing crowd of relatives gathered to savour in the news. An uncle of mine who had started the long drive back to the city had picked up a newspaper halfway through his trip, turned to page 3, seen my sister's name as one of the best performers in the country among tens of thousands of candidates, and turned right back to show family and the entire village the name in the newspaper. It was big. And there she was, my sister, the girl of the moment, looking as if she was wondering about swatting a fly. She's like that. Academia is never a struggle it seems. She had attended seven different primary schools, most of them rural, as a result of my father being subjected to incessant transfers by the government while in civil service. From her last school, a non-nondescript school with no doors and God's red earth for a floor, she had gone on to attend one of the country's best high schools, graduated college with a degree in Commerce, added an MBA to her academic stack, and before I could say I-have-a-dream, the girl was a big-time banker shaping the destiny of the nation's economy. I recently asked her about opening my going-to-the-market-to-buy-tomatoes individual account at the bank she works with, and she said, "Uh... our bank deals only with multi-nationals, oil companies, pharmaceuticals, you know..." Well! "Hon," I said to my husband, "that village girl's a big shot now." Good thing about having successful siblings is that you can brag on them and claim the glory by association. She stands in the gap for the girl-child who's been dismissed as intellectually inferior to the boy.
Mama never had to worry too much about her. But Mama always had to worry about me. She had reason to.
I had sat my high school exams the same time as my sister sat her primary school exams. When my results came out, the VFNA announced, "O, that's the one with a blunt brain. Ai! Lord help her." Heads hung low in shame and whispers of pity wove a fog around small groups.
My destiny had been predetermined by those results. I was branded the failure. It was a repeat nightmare as I never seemed to conquer this national exams monster. Once again, the pendulum had swung towards the catastrophic. When dad asked me what had happened, trying his best to find an explanation to the total destruction of a life, I looked him dead in the eyes and said, "I failed." Shame was my gift to my family, my people. Prayers for my pained mother and disappointed father were whispered in dark places. The foliage along the footpaths of the hills took those prayers, wrapped them up with love, and sent them off to the heavens. Lord, help the child!
The times I scored A's in class when no one was watching did not matter; only thing that counts is your national exams grade, sat under the pressure of expectations. The good news with being a poster child for failure is that there comes a point when the village does not expect anything from you and they mercifully dismiss you, letting you float away into the arms of your assumed destruction. Apparently, I dismissed myself too, because when dad asked me:
"What do you want to do now?"
I said, "Draw."
"Draw what??"
"Draw things. People, trees, anything."
"You mean you want to go to one of those dingy no-good art schools sitting on top of bars in Nairobi??"
How could I explain it? The path of my destiny had not fully crystallized in my mind enough to say, "I want to express myself, freely, unencumbered. I want to tell the world something, I don't know what yet. I'm an artist, and my life's purpose is painted upon an artistic arch." With time, this would begin to unfold. But it came easier because dad thought I still had enough brain to do well in school. The A's I scored when no one was watching were real to him, and he wanted the world to know that. He said to me, "You are going back to school." I said to him, "No, I'm not."
You see, every child, without exception, even the one with physical or mental challenges, scores A's in the field that nurtures their God-given purpose. Because many of these are fields that our school system cannot fully accommodate, our human spirit and national conscience must do so. Then, only then can we stop branding young lives with the scarlet letter F and allow them to scale their own pyramids of success.
Where were we... Ok, so when I declared I'm not going back to school, Mama called one of my aunts and said to her, "O, talk to her. See if she will accept to go back to school. What will I do? What will become of her now?" She worried. She hurt. She was afraid. She wished she could write success on the walls of my life. But she was not God. So after talking to my aunt (who conveyed this message many years later in my life), Mama did what she knew best. She prayed.
And dad did what he knew best. He had me kidnapped (well, sort of) and sent back to repeat the last class in high school up in the remote corners of the hills. There, I arrived without a book, without a pen, and without a dream. Just me. Me and the hills. Without knowing it or calculating it, dad had sent me to a school that had no prefect body and no fence. The students policed themselves and a few sensible rules kept discipline. I was home. I was not in a boot-camp, triple-fenced, prefect-ruled catholic school that churned out academic excellence and made headline news every year. Neither was I in a school where bouts of Malaria came coursing through my vulnerable veins every school term. Here, in this last-chance boondocks school, I was among the cows, the stream behind the classroom, the fog that lifted magically from the hills, the rains that beat down an ancestral rhythm against the tin roofs. I took long walks up and down the hills after studies without the need for permission. I was free. Peace at last.
But there was no reputation of academic excellence in this school, so never once did I kid myself that my final grades would ever be any better. At the end of the year, I re-sat the national exams, and the waiting period, that chthonic realm, was once again my abode. Where would the pendulum swing? Hope or devastation?
The results came. To the disbelief of many, I had done well and made the enviable cut for the national universities. Only three girls from that school had made the cut and were about to scale the academic pyramid. A thousand others had just joined the base, a scarlet F sitting on their foreheads. As I thought about passing my exams, something told me I hadn't done it by myself, for I had spent too many hours contemplating, discovering non-curricula books in the school library that no one cared to read, walking by the river banks behind the school, throwing pebbles into the whirlpool, basking in the afternoon sun, just being. Something else had made me pass those exams. What was it?
One day, after I got my results, Mama and I sat outside enjoying a lazy conversation. Then she said to me,
"You know, one night, during the time you sat for your final examinations, the last time, I started saying my prayers as I usually do. I knelt down by the bedside, and I prayed that you may pass your exams. I prayed as hard as I could. Then I got to bed and tried to sleep, but immediately felt that I had not prayed enough. I needed to get closer to God. So I knelt on the bed where I was a foot closer to God and prayed some more. I prayed that you may succeed."
My question was answered. You see, a thousand books can be read to achieve greater knowledge, a hundred commissions can be formed to resolve a national crisis, a million dollars can be spent to bring about successful ends to a project, the dedication of countless teachers can be poured into churning out A-students. But in the places where we do not see, where all our efforts come to naught, in the realm that is beyond our understanding, it takes a mother's prayers to turn the tide. Mama prayed; I rose.
Mkawasi Mcharo Hall
For all women whose brainpower, love and prayers continue to turn the tide and sail us ashore.
For all the boys and girls who did not make the cut; your star shines ahead, blaze on towards it.
For dad, who always knew the extent of my brainpower even when the system indicated non existed.
Finally, for all fathers who expect and invest as much in their girls as they do in their boys.
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