Things only people who went to public primary schools will understand

It was a mixture of everything; bitter moments, mad fun, lots of laughing, lots of crying, and a little bit of recklessness.

But all that is what made it even more beautiful. I mean, if it was all smooth, what could be there to look back to and smile today?

If you went to one of those public primary schools bearing the village name or some ridiculous name that you can’t even mention – because you even wonder how dumb people could be to give a school such a name, this is for you.

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I bet you can relate to these:

1. Walking long distance to school

Though this was not for everyone, some pupils would walk for hours to go to school. Not because there was no other school close to their home but because the nearby ones were not the best in terms of academics performance.

2. The morning dew

Ouch, just the memory of it hurts. Maybe this was not the case in your area or at least if you had some DH rubber shoes to go to school. But the mornings around the Mt Kenya region were chilly as hell and your poor bare feet remained numb until around lunch time. And by the way, even if you had shoes, you preferred to leave them at home lest you be the topic of satiric discussion.

3. Disc

And because English seemed like Chinese, a ‘disc’ had to be used to make you speak in English or at least Swahili for the village pupils who couldn’t stop using their mother tongue. The ‘disc’ could be a large piece of carton and you were supposed to walk around with it or hang it around your neck until you caught another person speaking mother tongue. At the end of the day, the culprits would be punished.

4. Corporal punishment

It’s like primary school teachers felt some sort of catharsis by whipping kids. And by the way they did it, you could tell they were having fun. Some mistakes would have you whipped by all the teachers from the Headteacher to the nursery school teacher.

5. Lazy teachers

Despite their love for discipline, some teachers never bothered to check your assignments. In fact, some hardly came to class to teach-and you still had to pass their subjects.

ALSO READ: Annoying things Kenyans do after returning from Majuu

6. Playing

Now, this was the only reason why you missed going to school. You played all sorts of games with so much energy and you would literally feel sad for missing school. The breaks seemed to be very short though and you never had enough.

7. After exams

Unlike in academies, school was over the moment you did your last exam for the end of term. You only went to school to play and eat because teachers were busy marking exams.