Never Say Never

Anthony Mugo

Description

Anthony Mugo�s Never Say Never is a compelling story of a teenager�s quest for education under the most difficult conditions. Daniel Muthini Njoki, the son of a poor, single mother, is arrested and taken to a remand home in Murang�a, then to Getathuru Reception Centre. He is subsequently transferred to other approved schools: Kericho, Othaya, and finally Kabete, where he sits and passes the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education. The doors to a university are now open. Although he is an innocent inmate, and although textual evidence points in the direction of the mother, the question of who engineered his arrest is part of what makes this work so unputdownable. The sum total is a superlatively well-written novel about the difficulties, the challenges, and the hopes of getting an education in Kenya.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Longhorn Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 6
• EAN13: 9789966316837
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

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Never Say Never
Anthony Mugo
Published by Sasa Sema Publications An imprint of Longhorn Publishers
Longhorn Kenya Ltd., Funzi Road, Industrial Area, P.O. Box 18033-00500, Nairobi, Kenya.
Longhorn Uganda Ltd., Plot 731 Mawanda Road, Kamwokya P.O. Box 24745, Kampala, Uganda.
Longhorn Publishers (T) Ltd., Kinondoni Plot No. 4 Block 37B, Kawawa Road Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
© Anthony Mugo
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2012
ISBN 978 9966 36 237 1
Cover illustration by Tuf Mulokwa
Printed by Printwell Ltd., off Enterprise Road, Industrial Area, P.O. Box 5216 – 00506, Nairobi, Kenya.
Foreword
The National Book Development Council of Kenya (NBDCK) is a Kenyan non-governmental organisation made up of stakeholders from the book and education sectors. It is mandated to promote the love of reading, the importance of books and quality education.
In November 2010, the NBDCK partnered with the Canadian Organisation for Development through Education (CODE) to introduce in Kenya the Burt Award for African Literature, which involves identification, development and distribution of quality storybooks targeting the youth.
The purpose of the Burt Award books such as Neper Say Neper is to avail to the reader quality, engaging and enjoyable books whose content is portrayed in an environment the reader can easily identify with, thereby arousing his/her interest to read and to continue reading. This sharpens the reader’s English language and comprehension skills leading to a better understanding of the other subjects.
The NBDCK would like to thank Bill Burt for sponsoring and allowing the Burt Award for African Literature to be introduced in Kenya. Special thanks also go to the panel of judges for their professional input into this project. Finally, this foreword would be incomplete without recognising the important role played by all the NBDCK stakeholders whose continued support and involvement in the running of NBDCK has ensured the success of the first Burt Award in Kenya.
Ruth K. Odondi Chief Executive Officer National Book Development Council of Kenya
Acknowledgement
The Burt Award for African Literature recognises excellence in young adult fiction from African countries. It supports the writing and publication of high quality, culturally relevant books and ensures their distribution to schools and libraries to help develop young people’s literacy skills and foster their love of reading. The Burt Award is generously sponsored by a Canadian philanthropist, Bill Burt, and is part of the ongoing literacy programmes of the National Book Development Council of Kenya, and CODE, a Canadian NGO which has supported development through education for over fifty years.
C HAPTER 1
“Happy new year!” the teacher said.
“Happy new year!” the class thundered back.
“You are now in standard four. Congratulations!” our new class teacher said, overriding the murmur in the class. The end of the holidays was never welcomed with a smile. It meant waking up early, less time to play, and following a restraining schedule. Nevertheless, it was 1986, a brand new year, and for the lucky ones, it meant graduating to the next class. I was now in upper primary!
Memories of days gone by flooded my mind. I recalled my first day in school and smiled. That day always brought a smile to my lips. The interview entailed passing the left hand over the head to touch the right ear. Well, I am yet to discover the correlation between the length of a hand, the head and education. Anyway, that was the rule of thumb back in those days. Doomed were the children with big heads and short arms. I was six years old. Either my head was too big or my arm too short because I happened to be one of the doomed ones. My mother was determined to get me enrolled, so she stretched my arm to the hilt and made me hold it in place. That was painful, of course, and I sobbed silently. By the time the interviewer got to me, I had let go. She simply looked at me and told me to go home. My mother hit the roof. The teacher told her that arguing would not change anything.
“His arm is short. We cannot argue about that,” the teacher said.
I ran all the way home because my mother thrashed me with a cane whenever she caught up with me. She did not utter a word on the way home. I could hardly see why she was so mad. To my young mind, it was much ado about nothing. I could not figure out why school was so important. If anything, I had just earned myself extra time to play with other children.
Unfortunately for me, very few interviewees made it through that year and, consequently, rules were relaxed. According to the interviewer, I had almost passed and, to my disappointment, I was enrolled two days later.
“We will begin with introductions,” the teacher was saying. “Let us start from this end.”
“Peter Njoroge Kamau,” the boy seated near the door said.
“Anastasia Njeri Munene,” his desk mate thundered.
I found myself among forty other pupils in nursery school. The classroom was mud-walled and we dutifully sprinkled water on the floor to contain the dust. Somebody had carefully studied our environment and recommended a soil-brown uniform.
Adapting to school life was not easy. It was like domesticating a wild animal. It was a completely new experience: waking up at six and braving the morning cold, learning the alphabet and numbers, drawing my mother on the ground and singing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and London’s Burning . However, with time, I created new friendships and found the things we learnt in class very interesting.
When you looked at the school compound on an off day, it looked like a stalled project. There was no gate at the entrance, the classrooms had neither doors nor windows and the newly built standard eight classes were yet to be roofed. The nursery section was still mud-walled. To the left of the compound were pit latrines, some perilously sunk into the ground and many without doors. A repulsive urea stench hung stubbornly about them. To the right was the playground, with tall cypress trees lining its perimeter. It had a poor topography and only the two goal posts made of timber suggested some games were played there.
A visit on a morning when the school was on, however, would have revealed a spectacle to behold. One would have seen the children proudly streaming from far and near, some of them panting from running in their zest to keep time. Evidently, many parents were as eager as my mother to educate their children, judging by the high population; each class had two streams.
“Your name?” the teacher’s voice pulled me out of my reverie. It was my turn to introduce myself. I got to my feet, an act that attracted subdued giggles. I hesitated as my eyes surveyed the class involuntarily, resting on Anastasia. She was the most beautiful girl in our class and I was attracted to her. Indeed, as far as I could surmise, every boy was attracted to her and all girls were envious of her beauty.
“Do you have a name?”
“Muthini Njoki,” I quipped bravely.
The class had been pregnant with laughter and immediately I mentioned my name, it exploded. It exploded because Njoki was my mother’s name. It was an invitation to ridicule for a boy to bear a female name. Having no husband and with a son who was not baptized, my mother had enrolled me using her name. I had no reason to hate my classmates; I was only embarrassed. They had fathers and were baptized, and I didn’t expect them to understand what it meant to lack any of these. To them, it was just a chance for a good laugh. Personally, I could not understand why I had no father or was not baptized.
They also laughed at my uniform. My shorts were patched at the rear, my sweater at the elbows and my shirt at the shoulders and collar. My mother was an expert in needlework, doing all the patchwork at home.