I recall meeting him in high school as I had just joined form one with a starry-eyed future ahead of me. Muturi was one of the coolest people, he had an aura that made the ladies want him and the guys befriend him not wanting to admit how secretly jealous they were of him.
Boarding high school conjures feelings of hardships and turmoil especially when one is experiencing the environment. However, in hindsight what sticks with you are the memories through the lived experiences that shape your life and make you become who you are.
It was a cold dark Monday morning when I woke up with a sense of urgency and excitement. All my stuff was packed in a bag, plastic bags, and the signature metal suitcase that is the trademark of anyone who has been to boarding school in Kenya, if you did not own one you definitely knew someone who had one. What I had to do now was to take a bath, dress up and take breakfast for unknowingly the day was going to be quite hectic and long. This was the day in which thousands of students from all over the country were to be admitted to their respective high schools.
My father was always one to keep time with a military-style accuracy and efficiency in the way we planned trips like missions whenever we traveled. He was proud and excited for his son now on his way to join high school but being a father, he kept checking to see that all was good before setting off for the journey. 'Have you packed, everything?' he asked. 'Yes! I did. "Did you remember to pack everything they had asked us to bring on the list?" again he asked. "Yes, I did," I replied. This went on for a while but did not stop as my mom would now join in the double-checking band wagon and on and on it went before being stopped by father suddenly who now felt that we were almost getting late by his time versus traffic estimate. 'Let's go!' he commanded. We prayed and then off we went.
We set off at exactly six in the morning. the schedule had stated that we were required to arrive at 8 a.m. but as we would soon learn this was merely a suggestion and not a rule. We arrived at 7.30 a.m. thinking we were among the first ones, but we were now confronted by a multitude of even earlier risers of parents and their children who had long arrived before us.
First, it was a scuffle before there was any sense of order as the laws of survival of the fittest picked as parents tried to get ahead of each other as soon as a queue was designated by shoving and pushing. When the dust literally settled, some had lost articles of clothes, accessories, wallets and because they could not risk giving up their positions on the queue, their children were relegated to the duty of searching; which looked like a field of a brood of chicken scanning the ground for anything to eat. Finally, there was an order as one after the other got into the office marked as the hall.
Surely packing was a waste of my valuable time the previous day. This was like checking into a boot camp of some sort. When it got to our turn at 3 p.m. the person who checked us was quite meticulous. My dad handed over the filled documents with a few attachments to it, a couple of questions were put to us and now I had to lay open my bag as well as the metal suitcase as we went through the checklist of items. 'Show me your sweater,' he said. I held it up and showed it to him. 'Where is your bucket?' he asked. It was right next to me and I thought it was a rhetorical question, but when I looked up and realized that he was not really looking, I held it up and he checked it on the form. This was about a 30-minute exercise and now I finally understood why we had spent what felt like eternity on the queue.
‘Your mother is not here!’ these words were uttered by a tall well-built gentleman with a torn shirt and on his hand was a plate as large as a bowl as well as a large spoon. This was my introduction to what I learned was supper time. It was quite chaotic as everyone with a spoon and plate in hand scrambled to the dining hall. "Are you not going to the dining hall, form one?” someone asked. He did not wait for my response and so I quickly scrambled and got my plate, joining the rush to the dining hall. When I arrived, I was quickly told by one of the prefects to seat where the other form ones were seated and so wading through the large tables of people, I managed to make out some of the other fellow form ones that I had seen at the admission hall, so I ushered myself to a table. Everyone on the table looked perplexed by the sights and sounds as we were all in unfamiliar territory. The silence was commanded by who I would later learn was the head boy. Suddenly there was pin-drop silence, then a person was ordered to pray, and then it was serving time.
Like poker players around a table, we held our plates and spoons close to our chests as we stared at the huge mound of ugali and the soup drenched kales in the two large bowls before us. With the common nostalgic memories of the food, we had been enjoying at our respective homes, none of us wanted to dig into this horrid-looking meal. It would not be long before we realized that this was gold that we were taking for granted by not digging in. Members from the table in front of us observed that none of us was touching the food. In the blink of an eye, two of them came over, and as they stood at the edge of the table, towering over all of us one of them asked: 'you guys are not eating? None of us answered and so with that, the bowls were taken to their table and like a frenzy of vultures on a carcass, once the bowls were placed on the table everyone armed with a spoon, plate, or bare hands grabbed at the mound of ugali as well as the kale stew. When they were done the empty silver bowls were left spinning out of control picked clean. To this day I often wonder how they managed to even scoop the soup. It was in shock at what we had seen that we decided to leave the table one after the other and on the way out I struck a conversation with a well-built, pale guy who we bonded out of the fact that we were both Nairobians and who I did not know at the time would be a close friend of mine.
There was an undisputed, unchallenged hierarchy in high school. At the top were the form fours' who by virtue of the fact felt entitled to the best of everything available be it food, the best bunks in the dorms as well as having the luxury of free labor for their chores from anyone they pleased. Then the form threes who were the next heirs subsequently chose to assert their future authority by throwing their weight around which was mostly felt by the form two's who in turn after freshly graduating from the school of hazing were bitter and projected this on the form one's who chose to mostly preserver and take it while hopping to do the same the next year and so the circle continued.
At the times we managed to meet in between classes, game times or just taking strolls during our free time, we spoke at great lengths about our individual future plans with Muturi. We narrowed it down to a plan in which we ended up being lawyers after college and successful ones at that as inspired by the dynamic duo team of lawyers from shows on television. Oh, how we envisioned the future being filled with nights on top balconies sharing a glass of scotch, cigars, and conversations on a plethora of topics from politics, law, among others that we often debated about.
I left first for college and we tried to keep in touch but with the distance between us and life, we grew apart. Sure, once in a while we would chat on the available social platforms but I suppose we were better off when we conversed over strolls in the fields of high school, over cold power drinks, and after hung overs of Yester nights during our partying days.
He was overwhelmed by a sense of disillusionment, the fact that he was not able to nab a suitable job opportunity, reconnect with his friends or get a suitable girlfriend when he came back home to Kenya. With all that he felt he could offer his motherland had chewed him up and spat out a jobless, unaccomplished and a loveless young man with not much zeal or hope for life.
It was a message from Facebook that informed me that he was gone. He had enough of what perhaps his country had to offer or maybe it was an unknown issue to me or to others who knew him better than I did that drove Muturi to end it all, but to this day when I think of those who are driven to such ends, I feel the need to genuinely ask, listen and get to know if those who I care about are okay.