STORY TIME

KAMBONYI AT SCHOOL Along the banks of the river Zambezi laid a small village called Silai. This village meandered along the banks like a mingling snake. In this small village lived a small boy named kambonyi. The boy was tiny but very cleaver. His name actually meant a small cob of maize. Yes his name marched him very well. This boy was not the way he was because he was underfed, no. His grandmother provided him with all that he need including rich nourishing foods. Perhaps his body was not appreciative. It denied everything that it received. Maybe he had one of those bodies that have vowed not to gain weight until the second coming. Like anybody else in the village, he liked fishing. It gave him a lot of joy and satisfaction .This was the only task or rather activity that he did without supervision. It gave him a lot of pride and confidence. Whenever he did so he felt like coming home. The boy liked school too. Most of all he liked his teacher. His teacher was so good to him that he treated him like was his own child. Sometimes he would even invite him to his home. While there he would motivate and encourage him to study hard. It seemed his teacher saw some potential in him. This however didn’t go well with some of his friends at school. They accused the teacher of favoring him. This created a lot of enemies for the poor boy. Sometimes some of the big boys would call him names and abuse him too. At first it didn’t worry him much but things grew worse when he came first in the test they were given. He beat the whole class. The boy was ridiculed, humiliated and even bitten up. Girls laughed and made funny of him. “You will die a bachelor.” They would shout at him whenever he passed by. They hated him as if it was him who made them fail the test. It seemed the poor boy was only seeing the dark side of his life. Slowly he started losing interest in going to school. It made him afraid. Once in a while he would miss classes and go fishing alone. Sometimes he would think of quitting school all together but the idea of living in the village for the rest of his life scared the hell out of him. Not only that the loneliness down the river could make someone go mad too. “Why has god created me?” … Why? He would ask himself. The more he thought about it the more he failed to hold back the tears. Kambonyi didn’t have either an elder brother or sister to cover for him. He didn’t have even a kid brother or sister. He was solely alone. This made it even more difficult than thought. Each day he hoped and hoped that the situation would change for the better. After being out of school for sometime the desire to go back grew each passing day. So one day he decided to go back. The atmosphere was as always but he didn’t mind.