T.M.E: Kago Learns to wash his left ear.

Children hygiene has always been given a high seat at the slopes, being passed from one generation to the other like circumcision in December. This hygiene was partially (if not fully) enforced by the introduction of what is now famously known as ‘Badge’ at the slopes primary school, a badge which has with time evolved to being called ‘Baji’.

This baji thing is a tiny brightly coloured piece of hard plastic, with a small pin on the underside and the words ‘Cleanest Child in so and so class’ engraved in black. The small pin serves the purpose of hanging the same on the child’s cardigan for a whole week when they win the award.

Kago always admired the plastic baji, though it always found a way of evading him. Even the week when Mukoigo had broken the bank and bought the kid a new pair of school uniforms, a new canvas bag and ‘mocasins’ , the damn plastic still evaded him. The whole of that week kago had made it a habit to pass outside the staffroom in a desperate bid to lure the attention of the teacher on duty.

The week had crept, and Mukoigo was sure his son would clinch the baji at the Friday assembly. 

Friday evening, Mukoigo saw his son walk through the gate dragging his oversize bag on the small patches of grass next to the main house. The boy looked like a cannon wreck.

“What is that in your left pocket..” Mukoigo asked the unconcerned boy.

“It’s a ‘monto’…..” Kago said, looking away.

“Let me see it..!” Mukoigo ordered with some authority.

The young boy dug into his pants pocket and pulled out an ugly poorly cut piece of timber. Looking at it, it had ‘I am a noisemaker, and a mothertongue speaker’ engraved. Mukoigo almost lost it. The Slopes primary school has a low tolerance to noise making, which is often treated with the contempt it deserves. Since madam Achieng was introduced as the school head from the ministry in Nairobi, she had come with a new rule which scared the children of the slopes to their bones, a rule which stated that a child was to speak either the Queen's dialect or swahili when in school, to improve their composition and insha abilities. This decision she had reached after a composition from a slopes student went viral in the whole division, in which English had been put on a table, her legs tied to the sides, and a scapel had been dug through the dialect, until she looked like the left overs of a tornado. It was highly suspected that the write up had been done by the son of Njooro, though the man angrily refuted the accusation, slamming them as baseless. 

“Dad, I was not even making noise, I was just….” Kago tried to argue his case.

“Go and show it to your mother..” Mukoigo said angrily. “Wait, why don’t you have the baji..? Even with your new clothes and shoes?”

“Teacher Ann said my ears are always dirty, and they gave the baji to Kamau he even…..” Kago went on, but his father was paying no attention, he always thought the teachers were biased, and always gave the baji to Kamau, whose father had once been a teacher.

“Come let me see your ears..” He pulled his son closer. The right ear was quite okey, according to Mukoigo’s standards, then he turned the boy around to check the other ear.

“Ooooh my…!” Mukoigo jerked. The ear was covered in soot-like substance, with lines running like a spider had built a nest in there and then changed its mind and left. “No wonder you don’t hear what we tell you!”

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Mukoigo had a rule in his household, the moment a child reached the second class, they graduated from being washed to washing themselves, not yet in the tin bathroom adjacent to the pit toilet and far from the main house, which was achieved once they graduated to upper primary, but on a small granary inside the kitchen. The granary had no door, but since the tiny lantern would not cover the entire room, there was some privacy.

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“Mama Kangi… !” Mukoigo called out. His wife emerged from between the bananas spreading out her dress, and Mukoigo knew very well that she was doing some natural irrigation but completely ignored it. “Come and see your son’s left ear, I think we should wash it and sell the water that comes forth as diesel..”

Mama kangi joined in and turned her son’s head to have a look at the accused ear. Indeed she was surprised, but like any other mother in the slopes, she decided to take action rather than stand there and shower her son with sarcasm. She wrapped a corner of her leso around her index finger, applied some saliva on the covered finger and scrubbed inside the boy’s ear, pulled out the finger, showed it to Mukoigo and they both shook their heads. Picking another corner, she applied saliva on it too and this time rubbed the ear harder.

“Ouch…! Mum you are hurting me…!” Kago screamed.

“Don’t you dare move..! had you been washing your left ear this would not happen.” Mama Kangi replied, still scrubbing.

“… But mum, I can’t reach my left ear with my right arm…!” Kago tried to protest, holding his mother’s hand and hoping to push it away from his now hot-with-pain ear.

Mukoigo looked at his son, shook his head in a sign of giving up, and stormed away talking to himself … “The moment they know they are right handed they think the left hand is only for decorations..” and clicked as he hit the gate.

“Eeehh Kago, have you ever tried using the left hand..?” Mama Kangi questioned, releasing the last corner of her kanga. The kanga now had little patterns of blackish dots, courtesy of Kago’s ears. The young boy stood there rooted, looking at his feet, then at his bag which he had thrown to the ground the moment the pain got unbearable.

“From today I will have to inspect you bathing ..” She said with a ‘as a matter of fact’ face.

“But mum, am big now….” Kago tried to overturn the ruling.

“If you were big you would know that both hands can be used when bathing. “ Mama kangi said as she walked back to the house.

That evening Kago bathed in the full glare of his mother, and Mukoigo joined in later on to inspect the task, smelling stale beer and matumbo.He finally managed to make use of his left ear, and made sure to spend a long enough duration cleaning out the soot in his left ear, bracing the cold which was eating into his bones with the courage of a slopes son.

From that day, Kago has managed to scoop a few bajis along the way,and even though he still braces the montos time and again, his parents and siblings have learnt to live with it.