In which they tried to burn me Inside a dormitory in Murang'a High School

At some point they did burn a dorm and this book was not as lucky as Murigi and I

I have cheated death more than once. In fact I have lost count of the number of times the grim reaper's scythe missed my jugular. (I hope he does't read this blog, I hear his sense of humour is rather literal. The most recent was last week when I ran into a blind corner doing 70 Km/h on my Tiger 150cc Motorbike. Someone was also bargaining, or is it negotiating? the same corner at perhaps 90km/h in a 6000 cc Leyland truck that looked old enough to have carried roofing sheets for the ark. Its brakes hadn't aged well. There was some skidding, a cloud of dust, coughing (mostly me) and a few choice insults that would have made an Eastleigh Makanga blush. 

Obviously I survived or I wouldn’t be typing this. There was also the incident- morbid people would call it an accident- where the same bike traded places with me and rode me for about 10 meters. It must have taken less than two and a half seconds but it felt like a week. When I crawled from under the machine, there was a strong smell of petrol and a hint of blood. Hell! I was so paranoid I could smell broken bones. Turns out I was mostly OK although scared sh*tless. I was in so much pain I almost threw up. But that could have been something else.

 This incident however reminds me of a different near death event. I was in Murang’a high-school and it was my last night in the place that had seen me grow from a scared boy into a tad arrogant teenager. Inside Gumba dorm, I was half asleep and the lights were out. Most of the students were either in the main hall watching TV or in the other hall for church service probably praying that CRE and Business (The last papers) would boost them. Me, I was sleeping. Then from somewhere in my subconscious, I felt the window next to the bed open and someone pour something in. The first thing I felt was an uncanny coolness that woke me up with a start. It started from the top of my head, spread to the neck and seemed to dissipate into my body. It felt a lot like hugging your ex at your wedding. Then there was the smell of petrol that tore its way through my nose like judge Ian rips apart a contestant's musical ambitions along with any dignity that may have survived that auditions with his acidic comments. “That last part of the song was the best” “ Thank you sir, do you mean when the pitch drastically changed as I did my final line?” "No the last part, when you stopped singing, I loved that”. *sips hemlock. (What happened to that show anyway)

I digress. I thought it was kerosene since in all my 17 years I had never had occasion to be bathed with petrol. Or kerosene for that matter. But at least I had a clue what the latter smelt like. I got of the bed faster than a traffic cop folds a bribe and high-tailed out of the dorm. On the way out, I nearly smashed through the prefects cubicle to wake them up since my first impression was whoever was irrigating the dorm with kerosene wanted to barbecue prefects. It had been done before. Once outside, I was joined by Murigi whose sleep had also been crudely interrupted (Did you see what I did there, with petrol and crude? No? Ok, i tried)  and we realized that the arsonists in waiting had not thought their plan though. Someone had the drop on them outside Gatimu dorm and one of them was being chased in our direction. I was only 17 by then and not a very strong believer in using violence to solve problems.(Tackling someone in rugby does not count) However, had I laid my hands on him, he would probably have ended up in a state of permanent lateness. Luckily for him, I smashed into one of his pursuers and we landed on a flowerbed. 

It was dark and he melted into the school farm.(It wasn’t really the school farm buts since students used to harvest Mangoes from it anyway it may as well have been- 3East Mko Wapi?). By then a horde of bloodthirsty boys had gathered. All through, no teacher had thought to grace us with their presence until Mzekiti, Macroton, Kimeria (What the hell was his real name again? Mr Njoroge? whatever) showed up with is 14 battery torch that could have illuminated Guiness and turned it into Krest. He was a bit tipsy and when he tried to ask questions, I may have responded in a manner to suggest that I do not use petrol as perfume any more than he does beer as deodorant.

We left him trying to string together and explanation and discovered that in Gatimu dorm, someone had found some of the suspects hiding. Am not sure what they were threatened with but they spilt their guts in seconds. Apparently, there is no honor among arsonists either. We rounded them up and handed them to the teachers who had by now figured out what was going on. They were quickly loaded onto the school van and we were assured they would be taken to the police station Pronto. Some of us who were still boiling with rage decided to follow the fellow who had escaped into the bush and we cut through around 5 kilometers of farmland to reappear in Mukuyu town without having arrested anyone.  Since we were in town, we thought we may as well head to the police station and hopefully hitch a ride back on the school van which had taken the suspects there. On arrival, we realized two things. One, there had been no report of any arson, successful of otherwise nor had our school van been seen anywhere near the police station. (over two hours since the suspects were allegedly taken there- it’s a 20 minite drive). The deputy OCS on duty was so drunk it took him 10 minutes to understand we had come to report a crime and we were not Mungiki adherents coming to surrender and request immediate execution.  He ordered into a police landrover and said he was having us driven back to school.

I was the last one to enter and since there were so many of us, I was half in and half out. He was unimpressed. He hit me with the butt of his AK47 so hard that the magazine fell on the tarmac. ”kijana hii si schoobus ya Muranga High!” (young man this is not the murang’a high schoolbus!) On that leaden note, I realized there was ample space at the back of the truck. Long story short, we went back to school and discovered that the whole thing was going to be covered up. Much like national corruption and ultimately it was covered up anyway.

PS. The other day I was in doing some photocopy in Thika and I recognized the guy who was providing the service as a former Murang’a high school student. We got chatting and when he realized the year I left, he told me. Casually. He was one of the guys who tried to burn the school. I smiled and put my hands in my pocket because I could feel my knuckles itching.