31st Aug, 2018
O-M-G! Hae xul woz xuch a bweeze!
Hi please, my apologies. I was in my zone of the eventful years that were the second ‘4’ in my 8-4-4. Sometimes nakaanga tu hivi nashindwa nilimake aje but then again, Mungu hamsahau mja wake.
I could talk about all the billion things that went down south and also went well in equal measure but I’ll just jump into the throwback I just had that inspired me to come here. Watu wa Science Congress tulikuwa wangapi? By show of hands please ??.
To be very honest mimi hata sikumbuki niliingia aje ?. Ile ukorofi ya knowing someone who knows someone to get you in haikuanza juzi. I was not the brightest bulb when it came to my sciences so I’m about 100% sure that it was not my smarts that got me in. In fact mimi nilikuwa zile blue and green tube lights kwa mat za Ronga.
I remember having to cram a lot of wish-wash so that the club teacher didn’t throw me out ikifika time ya kudecide nani anaenda na nani haendi. Ilikuwa unangoja jina yako iitwe you cross over to the goers on the other end of the room. We’d laugh and laugh and laaaaauuugh at those who would baki. Kazi yao ilikuwa kujaza club registry for quorum so the club could run na kulinda shule while the rest of us cool kids went. Ngoja tuone nani atacatch after kusoma hiyo part.
The ride to the funky would be highlighted with our croaky voices blasting acapella to the trending songs zenye tulikuwa tunaskia once a week during Sato entertainment. Twenty minutes to the host school, the teacher would get up and order us quiet down and instead continue to cram things and the flow of the presentation. It would also be very unladylike ?? to pull up in our bus squawking lyrics we hadn’t confirmed because those days internet ilikuwa Dial-up Internet na ilikuwa tu ya computer teacher
If you were in school around the time I was in school, then you are familiar with the phrase ‘women of substance’. This, in my time was the most misused phrase in school. “Walk like women of substance”; “can you laugh like women of substance!”; “get into a single file like women of substance”; “socialize like women of substance!” said all teachers. Small small ungeambiwa ukule kama a ‘woman of substance’. Shida ni, we didn’t have a dining hall by the time I was leaving – not very substantial conditions, huh? Tulikuwa tunakula kwa ka uwanja but it had an amazing canopy – #NatureLover! But I hope walijenga juu tuliichangia sana.
And so, we would alight from the bus in a single file like ‘women of substance’; and that substance would evaporate the minute we were done rehearsing and were free kutembeatembea hoping a boychild would approach you and your buddie. Btw, what in the world??? Funkies and African traditional dance ceremonies are becoming more and more similar in my mind as I write this.
Science congress ndio tulianza kupimana akili. Whether you were spectating or presenting, it was always a game of roulette to see who would be left standing defending their smarts.
On this particular day, I was part of the trio presenting. We’d made a contraption that could use wind energy to power bulbs. It was genius then. We’d prototyped the whole thing with a couple torch bulbs nini nini. The details escape me, obviously. Plus, I only needed that info for those 10-15 minutes I was wowing with my ‘fakage’ – ‘fakeness’ wouldn’t do justice to the amount of faking I had to do.
Wacha the panel started to ask questions that I had no clue on how to answer. Electrons zilikuwa zinafanya?
That was the last Science Congress I participated in for three reasons:
1) All the boyshaodz had known mimi ni tube lights za mat za Ronga.
2) Madame wa high school na landlords wa Githurai one side – hawa watu hawajui huruma.
3) I was obviously kicked out of the science club and my ‘I might not be Science book smart but it is in my blood’ argument could no longer hold water.
Up until form 4, tulichungia watu wa Science club shule; children of Loki we were called??
I know the horror, processes, tension and anxiety of standing before a panel and having questions hurled at you. I also know the adrenaline of being a spectator and the emotions of joy, anxiety and wah! that irritation that comes when you’re rooting for someone and they’re not listening to you on the other side.
Guy and girls, KCB Lions’ Den season 3 returns to your screens this Tuesday September 4th 2018 at 8pm; only on KTN!
Tupatane twitter with the hashtag #KCBLionsDen!
Juu mlipitia ‘hae xul’, Mexico ilikuwa inaitwaje na Kiswahili? ?Over&Out,
The Witty Banker
