The Nuisance fly
There is a fly that keeps buzzing by my ears
It's always there every month, every year
I want to slap it so hard
but am afraid of the accuracy of my hand
I might miss the target and land my palm on my bald
If I spray on it, I might inhale the insecticide
And die by the fly's side
But inside, I feel am not supposed to be pissed
Am supposed to be at peace
I think I will not kill the fly
Instead I will fly
The flight to the sky
The sky where the crowds await me on the cloud
Where the fly can't reach
Not even the witch!
The crowd in the cloud await my writings.
As I write these right things for the crowd,
My peace will be found
And my shilling will be pound
Disentangled from the village mentality
Bred in a culture that doesn’t value education, I grew up with negative energy concerning books. The reading culture was poor and it always transcended from one generation to the next. The school was seven miles away. That further teared down the morale. We strained to imbibe from the sponge education. Nothing was ever motivational about books. Every concept in class was literally theoretical. You can imagine learning about Rural-Urban migration and the only urban you had a clue about is the village shopping center pimped with loosely constructed timber structures. That was the closest example.
We soldiered on. We strained to achieve education. Teachers were scarce. Some left us to study on our own and went feeding their livestock. Girls rarely set their feet in High school.
One time, we were visited by the Whites and the entire learning system got paralyzed. We got enthusiastic towards them after learning about them for ages. They brought books and went further to quench our throats by buying us plenty juice. That day, my tummy danced while I ran. The two liters of juice literally swayed side by side in every move I made.
Their visit became periodical. We could expect them every other term. And that alone kept me attending classes.
The books they brought had pictorial representation of every concept. I was enthralled. They also went ahead to gift the best performing students. I missed the chance by a narrow margin from the girl who was prized. Next time, I swore to turn the tables. I cultivated the reading culture and by the moment I was fining my primary school education, my scores were impressive. The same Whites came and sponsored my High school education. I could not hold back my joy travelling in a bus for kilometers. I joined a school in the city and the trend even got a notch higher whereby the best performing students got a ticket to travel in different places of the country. I am now in University and I can’t get enough of books. The reward has been quite fulfilling thus far!