storytime#2 Not so smart Rose!

Cuevas del Drach             Foto by Tobi.P

My memory of this day is so Cristal-clear one would think it were yesterday when i was buying my school uniform and getting ready  for boarding school.

I was 11 years old and i had received my admission letter to st. Johns boarding school. Starting a new school is always a financial burden to all parents in Kenya. The list of the things the children need to buy is endless. As the opening day drew nearer and nearer, my mother and i would go through the list severally like a protocol  to make sure we had not forgotten anything. Children needed a storage box (mostly metal), where all the stuff would be stored. Inside i would put one after the other: two navy blue dresses, two light green blouses, two pair of white socks,  two grey pullovers, soaps, tissue papers, tooth paste, tooth brush, a pair of slippers, two night dresses, face creams, a comb (which was kinda ironical since we had all to shave...oh yes, all of us. Boys and girls), a handkerchief, a pair of back to school black shoes, shoe polish, bedding...etc.
My mother would saw my names on all my clothes and while she wrote my names on the soap dishes and shoe brushes she would tell me; "take good care of your things Rose, otherwise they will all be stolen and you will have nothing left. Take especially good care of your keys". She would add. Months, weeks and days passed by and the big day was finally there.


Opening day:

Dad took me to school. I loved how i looked in my new school uniform. I remember that my box was huge, i could easily lock two kids my size inside with no problems :-). We registered, they checked if i had everything and i got a school mum. Did you also have school mums? School mums were kids from a higher class who would help the new comers to find their way in the new school and help them have a easier start. My school mum was nice and i was lucky that she was one of the cool kids which protected me from being "monolized". Monolization is a brutal practice in Kenyan schools where older kids force the new comers (the monos) to do their crab. Wash their clothes, clean their shoes, fetch them water etc. Being a mono is no joke.

Anyway let me come to the part where i was "so not smart"!

My mother´s words were lingering all over my mind. "Take good care of your keys Rose".
So in the first night i was so worried about where to store my keys so that no one steals them while i slept. So guess what the smart me did?

I opened my box, removed my keys from the padlock, put my keys in pocket of my skirt, folded my skirt and put it in the box together with all my other stuff aaaaand locked it!

"No one can steal my keys now" i thought to my proud self and slept like a baby with a smile on my face.

Not until the next morning, did i realize what i had done....

I had locked my keys in the box! I had nothing, no soap, no towel no clothes. My first day and already the clown of the school. I had to stay in my night dress until after breakfast when the teacher with my spare key arrived. You can not even start to imagine how embarrassed i was!!! I was the gossip of the week.Those who stood my me then ended up being my best friends till the end of primary school.

That was the beginning of a very interesting boarding school life (cold showers, major beatings from teachers, boys...etc) of which i will tell you about in another storytime section.

As for now, i hope you had a great start in the week.

Stay blessed and be smarter than i was :-)

Lots of luv
ItsRose-Beth