Tbt# School Culture and Resources Back in the ‘80s

The schoolyard of Sergoit primary school (UG) in the 1980s was always alive with the shuffle of bare feet and the chatter of children arriving from distant villages of Kapnyangi, Chembulet, Kaptuli, Kaplogoi, Chemanywes... Some had walked seven, even ten kilometers, their faces flushed from the morning cold, their clothes thin against the biting wind. We carried our lunches (mostly mkarangoo) in tin containers, hanging them on the branches of a great tree outside the classroom. By midday, goats would sometimes wander in, tearing down the tins and feasting on our food, leaving us to laugh bitterly or walk home hungry.

Inside, the classrooms were little more than shells. At Sergoit Upper, three brick-walled rooms stood side by side, their floors dusty and uneven. The headteacher’s office was squeezed between Standards Five and Six, a cramped space where books were marked and milk packets distributed. Every Tuesday and Friday, the Nyayo School Milk program transformed the atmosphere. Children who had skipped classes earlier in the week appeared faithfully on those mornings, eager for the small packet of milk. It was a ritual of survival, a taste of sweetness in otherwise lean days.

Cleanliness was a daily battle. Poverty meant soap was scarce, lotion rarer still. Tractor oil was the only “cream” most families could afford, and even that was rationed. My sister once told me boys didn’t need lotion, it wasn’t masculine. I believed her, until the dry grey patches on my skin drew the wrath of teachers on duty. Their canes reminded us that discipline extended even to our appearance. The cold mornings left my nose running endlessly, another mark of shame that earned punishment.

Books were treasures, passed from hand to hand, their pages worn thin. Safari Book 1 and Hello Children carried us into worlds beyond our dusty classrooms. We recited the story of Simon Makonde, who lived and died within a week, a parable of life’s brevity that lingered in our minds. Language was policed with the dreaded “Disc,” a piece of wood handed to anyone caught speaking Kiswahili or mother tongue. Carrying it meant humiliation, so we stumbled through broken English, inventing phrases that became part of our shared culture. “Help me pen pilis,” one boy would say, and another would laugh, “This pen is not for GK!”

Violence simmered beneath the surface. Boys fresh from circumcision strutted with defiance, refusing orders from female teachers. One from Kaplogoi village, even dropped out rather than accept correction from a woman. Discipline was everywhere — in the cane, in the Disc, in the silent expectation that we endure hunger, cold, and shame without complaint.

Yet amid the scarcity, there was creativity. Teachers encouraged us to weave mats, draw shapes in the dust, and tell stories under the big tree. At Tugen Estate, where I schooled later, the old mud-walled classrooms filled with dust clouds whenever we moved, and every Friday girls carried water to sprinkle on the floors. It was a ritual of care, a way of making the space livable. Music and drama festivals brought color to our lives, with Madam Selesa leading us to Kipchoge Stadium, where we sang and performed with pride.

School culture was a paradox: harsh discipline and scarcity on one hand, laughter, creativity, and community on the other. It was a place where goats stole lunches, where milk packets became symbols of hope, where broken English turned into shared jokes, and where dusty classrooms still managed to nurture dreams.