by Besa Mwaba
He smiled and threw his fist into the air once again.
CHAPTER THREE
Nawa possessed no academic degree, diploma or certificate but he too was fully confident that he stood an excellent chance of becoming the next headmaster. As he sat down on a rickety stool in a local bar that evening enjoying his beer, his mind went through what he knew were his strengths. He had unmatched experience at the school, having taught there for nineteen years. Even the present headmaster had found him teaching at the school. Nawa gulped down his beer and then called for his fourth. A rhumba song with a heavy bass rhythm was buzzing in the sound system.
Nawa also knew that his love for his work was legendary. He was always the first teacher to report for work every morning. He was popular with his pupils and he produced good pass rates every year. So great was his committed to his work that his love for the bottle did not seem to affect his output. He never allowed pleasure to interfere with his work. But he did allow work to interfere with his pleasure, such as this evening when he had decided to come with his pupil’s books to the bar. He would mark their work in between drinking and dancing sessions.
Another area of clear advantage was his marital status. He was married to a beautiful woman with whom he had six children. He considered himself to be a responsible man.
He knew that he had not bothered to advance his academic qualifications over the years. As a result, he had seen most of his peers rise in rank above him. Most of them were now either headmasters or deputy headmasters. But Nawa realised that he was not far behind notwithstanding. He used his charm and skill to get his way up the ladder. As of now, he was senior teacher, which- as was the case with all other senior teachers at the school- made him head of department. Given his academic background, his current situation was more than what he could ever have bargained for. He knew of others with similar qualifications as his who worked and retired at assistant teacher level. He considered himself lucky to have a job at all, that is, to say nothing about his being head of a department. He called for his fifth beer and also lit his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and then released a ball of smoke into the air. He tapped his feet on the floor.
He saw some girls enter the bar. They looked young and new to the bar. He pulled at his cigarette and released the smoke. The girls reminded him of Moses, one of his fellow senior teachers. Nawa did not really consider Moses to be a competitor on the race to the vacant position. Moses had the academic paper but his output was rather average. Besides, his illicit carnal activities with the school girls had made him an unsuitable leader at any level. If anything it made him a candidate for outright dismissal.
His beer arrived and he took a sip.
Nawa’s mind then shifted to Juma. He considered Juma to be even less competitive than Moses. If the school considered the academic paper as being of paramount importance, then Juma was behind Moses. If they considered experience, then again Juma was far behind Nawa. What Juma possessed, everyone else possessed in higher units. Like Moses, Juma’s output was not impressive. But unlike Moses, Juma was a married man with two children. But even in this area again, Nawa would wallop him hands down.
“Anything that you can do, I can do it better. I am the toughest,” he sang to himself.
These happy thoughts lifted Nawa off his stool on to the dance floor. He picked on a slim girl in a white trouser and red blouse and pulled her close to him. He then swirled her around and then held on to her waist tightly while gyrating his own waist vigorously.
*****
IT was while in his second year at Kwame Nkrumah Teachers college that Juma first met Julie. He had seen her at church seated in the pew opposite his. She had been sitting with her mother and occasionally she had been stealing glances in his direction as the sermon continued. Juma had pretended to have been paying “more than the usual attention” to the preaching, but all along, through the corner of his eye, he had sharply tuned his line of sight to an acute angle so that he could watch Julie without it being obvious. To Juma, the sermon had been long and extremely boring and as soon as the service had ended, he had “accidentally” bumped into Julie, who was wearing a perfectly fitting flowery yellow dress. The two young churchgoers had exchanged warm greetings and had lied to each other about how touching and inspiring the service had been.
This had become a pattern, week in, week out. That is how Juma had found himself addicted to going to church. And before long he found himself unable to refuse when he was appointed as one of the church ushers due to his regular, exemplary attendance.
After a while, Juma had asked Julie to visit him at campus. She had agreed, and Juma had meticulously prepared himself for her visit. He had gone to the barbershop, had polished his shoes and had sprayed his room with borrowed air freshener. Finally he had bought two soft drinks and two meat pies and had then sat in his room, waiting anxiously for her coming.
Julie had turned up an hour and a quarter late, and this had raised Juma’s impatience. But she had come alone and this had raised his hopes. Finally, she had come with a bible perched underneath her armpit, and this had raised his confusion.
“Are…are we…we are not going to hold a bible study, are we?” Juma had asked anxiously. His motives had nothing to do with a bible study. If anything, what he was contemplating doing with Julie was explicitly condemned in the same bible. In fact the same bible stated in no uncertain terms that those practicing what Juma had in mind would “not inherit the kingdom.”.
“I just brought this bible in case someone walks into the room and finds us,” she explained. The explanation made a lot of sense and the tension was reduced a little. After exchanging pleasantries, Juma had again looked at the bible now on Julie’s laps but she had smiled
“It is alright,” she had said. Juma had understood her to mean, if they were there to commit fornication, what difference would it make if they also committed a minor blasphemy?
Being his first encounter with a girl, Juma found that he was quite inadequate for the task. His question, “Can your mother repair a leaking tap?” was closely followed by “How many times does a goat go to the toilet in a day?”
The confusion was now increasing the tension in the room, and the two found themselves quiet most of the time. Juma had tried very hard to conjure up some more questions that would lead to a conversation but he kept asking silly questions. His carefully planned script had gone horribly wrong.
Julie had sensed the situation and she had tried to help by shifting from her chair on to sitting on the bed next to Juma. Juma’s mind froze and even the thoughtless questions ceased. He found himself listening intently to the faint sound of a barking dog in the distance.
CHAPTER FOUR
JUMA was moderately curious when the headmaster called him to his office two days after the staff meeting. Normally, the headmaster would talk to him about work whenever he passed through the office in the afternoons. For the headmaster to have specifically called him this early, it meant that there was a matter of urgent importance.
“Good morning sir,” Juma said as soon as he entered the headmaster’s office.
“Good morning Juma, please sit down,” replied the headmaster. He removed his spectacles and then folded the letter that he had been reading.
“The Education ministry, through the school board, has expressed acute displeasure with our schools in the area of inappropriate teacher-pupil relationships. They say that moiré and more male teaches are having inappropriate relationships with school girls and incidences of school girl pregnancies are high. This is unacceptable and the ministry has asked all schools to do something about it.”
Juma nodded in agreement.
The headmaster continued, “Our board would like us to address this issue immediately, and I think that the best way to approach this is to isolate the teachers who seem disposed towards this practice. Not one will confess to this crime so a discreet investigation must be underway to address this problem. I want you to personally handle this
assignment and manage it all the way.”
Juma beamed with a wide smile.
“At the end of the exercise, I shall expect a detailed report on the method you shall use to capture this information, your actual findings and your recommendations. I shall appraise the success of this assignment through the output. At the end of the day, I shall expect all teachers involved in this vice to be uncovered and action recommended must be clear.”
As Juma walked out of the headmaster’s office, he coupled his broad smile with a triumphant throwing of a clenched fist into the air. What the headmaster had just assigned him to do was an extremely important exercise. It hinged on the actual moral fibre of the profession. It had come from the ministry itself, through the school board, through the headmaster and now Juma was to champion it. Certainly this was good news. He would share it with his wife Julie once he got home after work.
Why had he been chosen to handle such a sensitive task when there were other teachers around? Obviously, it meant that Juma was seen to be a clean person in that area. Above all, the headmaster was obviously setting him up for a vacant management job in the school.
Juma had no idea where he would start the exercise from. But he was very sure that he would present a very good report- his best effort ever. It was not only about the inappropriate relationships that he would eliminate. This time he was doing it to also campaign for the job of headmaster.
He at once realized that he would need a more intelligent head to work with in total confidence, and the first and only person that came to his mind was Violet. Violet was not a school teacher; she was a researcher with the UN and had worked in the area for seven years. She and Juma had worked on an assignment of mutual interest to their professional fields two years earlier, and they had become friends from then on. Everyone appeared to be aware of that close friendship, except for Juma’s wife.
Before he fully realized what he was doing, Juma found himself knocking at the front door of Violet’s house at exactly one o’clock that afternoon. Violet opened the door, and with a sweet smile, she invited him inside the house. Juma walked inside slowly, eyeing her lacy, translucent dress suspiciously.
“Well, I was not expecting you but I am very glad that you have thought of paying me a visit all the same. You are welcome. As you can see, I am not working today and I spent most of my morning hours sleeping. Do you care for some nshima with eggs, beans and lettuce?”
“Sure that sounds appetizing,” replied Juma.
“Good. Let me finish the preparations then. In the meantime, feel free. You may remove your shoes too in order to relax.”
Juma declined the last part of the invitation. He was not used to having lunch with women who asked him to remove his clothing. Besides, he rather doubted that the well decorated and spotlessly clean room would go well with the smell that would emanate from his stockings.
The meal was ready in fifteen minutes. They ate while discussing general issues without referring to the purpose of the visit even once.
“So what brings you here?” Violet asked after she had removed the dishes. Juma explained in detail the purpose of the visit, with emphasis on the importance of the exercise.
“That sounds interesting. I think we can work out something together. But why don’t we go to my bedroom first? We can take a nap first and then see what happens.”
“Your bedroom?” he blurted.
“Yes my bedroom. I will not bite you.”
“But…”
“You do need my help right?”
“Yes, but…”
She started to unbutton her dress while standing in front of him. She then allowed the dress to fall freely off her body and onto the floor on the red carpet.
*****
THERE was noisy excitement in the school dining hall during dinner. A tall boy called for order and a hasty prayer was offered. Afterwards, plates and spoons were heard cluttering against each other. Noisy discussions accompanied the meal.
Quite unexpectedly, senior teacher Moses entered the hall and went straight up to the platform. He scanned the audience and the entire hall fell into dead silence.
“Good evening boys and girls,” he said in his deep voice.
“Good evening sir,” the pupils answered in unison.
“Without wasting my time here, l just came to let you know that Preventive maintenance shall be commencing next week. As you all know, unless you are an idiot, preventive maintenance is essential. It helps prevent diseases and I expect you to stop missing classes due to having diarrhea every other week. This exercise shall start with you.
I demand total cleanliness of your bodies first. Wash your clothes and bathe every day, not just when you feel like. If you have one under pant- which is the case with most of you, wash it at night every day. Wearing the same underwear day in day out without bothering to wash it is the reason why this dining hall smells as through we are on a farm when you are gathered like this. And yet the moment you walk out of this hall, it begins to smell normal again. When you bathe, it is not just about your face, hands and legs, no. Wash all private areas, wash your anus. No one shall wash your anus for you. I shall be conducting daily inspections on you all, whether boy or girl."
There was a controlled murmuring sound from the middle of the hall. Moses ignored it.
"Apart from your bodies, you shall clean the school surroundings. You shall cut grass down, dig pits, clean toilets…”
This time a loud murmur emerged from one of the corners in the hall. Moses stopped speaking and looked belligerently in that corner. After silence had restored itself, he pointed to the same corner and said, “All that I have said so far shall be performed by the pupils in that corner.”
A small boy raised his hand.
“Yes?” snarled Moses.
“Sir, not all of us in this corner murmured. It will be unfair for those of us who were just listening.”
“Can you then point out who was murmuring?” Moses posed the challenge.
No one moved.
A girl’s hand went up.
“Yes?” snarled Moses again.
“Sir, when such punishment is given..."
"Young girl it is not punishment, it is preventive maintenance," shouted Moses.
"When such work is given to pupils, you find that prefects simply supervise the rest of us. They do not want to participate in working and yet we are all pupils.”
“Your prefects will play a supervisory role. That is why they were chosen to be your prefects.”
A bigger boy raised his hand and said:
“Sir, I have a complaint against you. I know that this corner has made a mistake by murmuring. But the punishment is too much. Digging a pit for instance is difficult. Last time a pupil fainted while digging a pit. Can't you just be fair and change the decision?”
“Yes this can be changed. Instead of the whole group digging the pit, I want you personally to dig one pit deep enough to hide yourself while standing straight.”
No one asked any more questions.
After giving the pupils a very severe reprimand, Moses dismissed them from the hall, with the meal only half eaten.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nawa walked straight to the bar after knocking off that hot day. He ignored several greetings on his way. All he wanted was the biting feel of a cold beer running down his throat. As he drew nearer, he heard the sound of one of his favorite songs playing. Without as much as a thought, he began to run towards the bar. Walking wasn’t getting him to the bar quickly enough. He might find the song finished.
“Bar man, bring six beers please!” Nawa shouted to the barman as soon as he reached the door. He entered the bar and looked for a seat near the counter. His six beers were brought. He opened the first one and gulped down all the beer at one go. He then let out a long, loud belch. He then opened a second bottle and again drank all the contents at once. The burning but bitingly cold sensation in his throat made him open the third bottle. This time he took a sip. It
was only then that he started to scan the surrounding, checking if he could identify anyone.
He saw patrons drinking in small groups and talking loudly on top of their voices, trying to be heard above the sound of the music. Others were already on the dance floor. Then he saw a woman drinking by herself in a corner. He gulped down the remaining beer and then opened his fourth. The beer was taking effect in his mind, and he found himself really enjoying the heavy beat and his vision began to get hazy.
Nawa had just decided to join the woman drinking alone when he caught sight of one of his workmates. His workmate was drinking in a corner with three pretty girls. Nawa finished the fourth beer and then carried the two beers with him to his friend’s corner.
“Moses, I did not expect to find you here,” said Nawa with a drunken smile. Moses looked up and saw his workmate looking jovial with two beers in his hands.
“You are welcome Nawa, please join us. We are here enjoying our drinks while waiting for the evening to wear on.”
Then, turning to the girls, he said, “Girls, meet my fellow teacher, Nawa.”
Then he said to Nawa, “Nawa, meet my girlfriend Cynthia. And these are her friends Aggie and Stella.” The girls giggled.
Nawa pulled a seat and sat down after positioning himself next to the plump, light skinned girl in a short red dress, the one who had been introduced as Stella. He took a swig from his beer so that he could have a clearer look at her.
“So how is your family Nawa?” began Moses. Nawa suddenly spat out his beer.
“My family…well…yes, my family is fine…my mother, she is good. My father too, not complaining. ”
“Actually, I am referring to your wi…”
“Waiter!” yelled Nawa as he stood up. The waiter walked over to their table and then Nawa said, “Bring us another round here.”