@magigi & ondiek, Ki-Sii-P-E pap.

Goodstuff from Nyakemsh!

GEOGRAPHY

Q 1. What does colour green represent on our national flag?
MPESA

Here's a true story. In 1995, I was a Standard 4 pupil in a village school somewhere in the deep recesses of the Rift Valley. The school headmaster, one loquacious fellow called Mr. Kiama, doubled up as my Swahili teacher. In retrospect, it seems to me that in those days, which subjects would be taught by which teachers was a matter largely left to the whimsical connivances of members of the teaching staff and their immediate bosses. Actual qualifications mattered very little. So one day, a question in our Swahili exam required us to choose, between four choices, which was the correct plural of "mbwa". It was a no brainer for me. "Mbwa", I ticked. To my astonishment, when the answer papers were returned to us marked, it was a wrong for me on that question. "Bona?" I asked Mr. Kiama. Even before he could answer, he first let out a tirade of insults, in a mother tongue we both shared, ostensibly admonishing me for my insolence in questioning his infinite wisdom. In the end, he told me and my classmates that the correct Swahili word for many dogs was "Ubwa". Of course I was cowered by his altercation and decided not to further contest his sagacity. Still, this is clear testimony to how divergent opinion and unconventional thinking is destroyed by our system. Many years later, I was myself a teacher for a while - of Physics to be precise. In a bid to be different I would, whenever I introduced a new concept such as Work or Power or Energy, require the students to tell me in their own words what they thought whatever concept in question was. Believe it or not, it was often the case that there was a student who would at least come very close to the correct definition. But to some, if what you have said is not lifted straight out of a mzungu-authored book, you couldn't be wronger. Ewe mwenyezi mungu utuasidie!

True.