I was never savvy at school politics nor did I actively seek these out, yet each time I was recommended to the student body I was surprised by the delight I felt. Something about being seen or thought capable maybe. I doubt I held any high aspirations about serving the good of the people and whatnot but I did hope I’d do a good job nonetheless, whatever that was at the time. The last time was no different. Heeding the prompts of a few classmates and offhanded remarks from a teacher or two, I said yes to myself and them and embarked on a campaign. But first, I needed to brave the staff room and submit my expression of interest for said position.
It took a few weeks to work past my self-doubts and finally bring myself to make my way over to the staff room, a door down from my classroom, to submit my application. With trepidation, I brought these paltry offerings of my self-justification for standing for the post. To my shortlived relief, the teacher I sought out, the one charged with managing the students’ body elections was just on the inside of the door when I walked through it. I didn’t have to brave speaking to another teacher asking them to point me in his direction. With my recently handed-in papers between us and the taste of fear still in my mouth, I discovered to my alarm, there had been a change to the rules. He informed me that in addition to submitting written applications, all aspiring candidates were now required to make an oral presentation before a select group of staff members, in the staff room, on why they should be nominated. Only successful aspirants following these interviews would have their names added to the Ballot. A two-step verification of one’s ability to lead no less. I froze.
I could barely make out whatever else he had to say, something about when the interviews were set to occur, given that I was trying to back out of the room and maybe somehow find and hit a rewind button to before I walked into the room. The staff room had minimal natural light coming in, empty seats arranged haphazardly around desks overflowing with books, and a handful of teachers scattered around the room. I was keenly aware of the fragility of their seeming disinterest in what was ensuing. I couldn’t wait to exit the room and any convictions I had allowed myself to entertain as I had settled into the dreams of emerging victorious vanished. At that moment, I knew this was the end of that for me.
The next few weeks were spent fielding queries regarding my application and preparations for the interviews then avoiding the quizzical looks once my persistent refusal to engage any more in the process was believed. Those were a hard couple of weeks having to go to school and navigate the day without being overwhelmed by these queries. I couldn’t breathe till the election period was done, and school life could return to normal where no one felt compelled to speak to me about the ongoing campaigns more so my early withdrawal from the process.
When it was all over, I was sad to have had to step away from something I had come to want for myself, disappointed even with the lost opportunity, but I was also proud of myself for making that hard decision and following through with it despite what felt like a barrage of reasons to ignore my caution. Time would help me put the sadness aside and embrace what remained of the school year. But several years later, in random conversation, my well-thought-out decision to withdraw from this election process would be revealed as no more than a knee-jerk reaction, a gut response to an as-yet-resolved internal issue.
I had recently arrived at this new school after spending a few years in one several hours away. One that often felt unfamiliar and hostile perhaps as an extension of the long uncomfortable journey to it. Nothing like the dread that threatened to overwhelm you once the bus to school drove through that last major roundabout marking the exit from the Capital city with a large signpost in its centre bidding you farewell from Kampala, in case you’d missed that detail. Onwards the buses went further away from home and deeper into the country. The noisy reunions and reconnections that marked the early morning meet-up at the pick-up point would soon turn into muted speech with sporadic excited outbursts from a few that remained unfazed by the length of the journey, the heat and crampedness of the bus, and the unstoppable hurtling towards a place that was anything but welcoming especially for those that arrived on these buses from Kampala. This animosity had alarmed me when first it was said to us.
The drive to the entrance was serene with the air there much cooler than what we had experienced on the last leg of the journey into and through the sprawling town the school was domiciled. The school lay midway up a hill with a few class blocks peeping through the wall of tall pine trees and lush vegetation. Nothing like our arrival to quieten us down as students quickly piled out of buses and personal vehicles looking for their luggage, friends, and familiar faces readying to face the arduous process of checking in along with hundreds more students and a thin staff team to handle the registrations. Goodbyes were painful to watch. The long bus drive having dulled the ache for those of us who had had to say these hours prior as our buses left the pick-up point in Kampala.
I had always hoped I’d be joining an older sibling who together with several cousins went to a Boarding school that was an hour’s drive from home. This hour was less about distance and more about the traffic hold-up getting to and from the school. We visited her often, every week or so it felt like to me at the time and ferried along the best treats and delights. I imagined this was what boarding school was going to be like; getting to see my parents and my siblings every other weekend and receiving the tastiest chocolate cake in my weekly supply replenishments. My school was anything but and the experience was made even harder by the long journey to it being a deterrent to regular visits from home, which was only compounded by the government directive to have only one miserly visiting day per term regardless of the length of the school term. Each year, the second term, at 12 weeks, was the hardest and loneliest to endure.
My school was nothing like I’d hoped for but something to get through. In the end, boarding school was school, mundane with a sprinkle of excitement every so on. The annual student body elections, as I imagine were the same in other schools, were a major source of excitement.
If I was a reluctant participant in student body politics in my latter years, I was even more so at this school. No amount of self-talk could convince me to brave it and put my name down for the ballot. I had nearly succeeded in avoiding it till a friend ─the incumbent convinced me I fit the bill as her replacement and suggested I campaign. I dreaded the idea of running any campaign but was high on her positive recommendations. Charismatic was definitely not the term used to describe me or my campaign efforts but she publicly vouched for me, and I determined to do a good job while at it.
A few days to the election day, just before the end of the last period before lunchtime, I was summoned to the headmistress’ office. The thought of having to go see her was scary on any given day. In the years I’d been there she was known as temperamental. The slightest thing set her off on a tirade and mercy to the one caught up in its downpour. I had heard and seen that she could be friendly but I had never experienced anything close to warmth from her on the few occasions my path had run across her. She was to be feared that I understood. For as long as I’d been in the school she had led the charge against students that came from Kampala-based schools. We were a sore reminder of a selection process she disagreed with.
As I walked over to the main office, with no reference, my mind ran wild with possible scenarios for why I’d been summoned. I worried it was about my grades, but why her office? Was it bad news from home? It had been a particularly difficult few years. Could we handle any more? I walked into the reception area, trying to rein in my mounting anxiety, I waited to be summoned to the interior of the office. Once told to enter, I walked into her office apprehensively. This inner office was slightly darker than the front office with less natural light coming into it. Unsettled by the change in lighting I was more so when I realized there were two other people in the room with her. No less than her known accomplices.
I don’t recall who spoke to me first; most likely she. I’d stood still between them, waiting nervously once I was done with my greetings. She asked my name. I told it to her again, and that I had received a summons to her office. She asked my parents’ names and centred on my father’s work. They spoke amongst themselves. She referred to papers on her desk. She repeatedly checked these throughout my brief time in her office. It took time to understand what was happening. She mentioned my grades. Ranted about children from schools in Kampala; this wasn’t new. She referenced my denomination and lamented my non-catholic state stressing how this further made me unfit for the position I was campaigning for. It felt like a lifetime standing before them. Between her winded sentences, the other two interjected assertions to validate what she was saying, what was being done. My responses to their queries and assertions became mumblings till there was silence from me. What does one say when an adult in the presence of other adults demands you say something after they have ripped into you, your family, and all you care for? Yes, I agree? No, I disagree?
Soon, a tug at my sweater, strong enough to pull me towards it, drew me to her assistant Pat. She had stuck her finger through a hole just above the hem of my sweater. My favourite sweater. I knew the hole was there. I had been putting off fixing it so far, blame a busy school life and procrastination. But now, the three adults in the room clung to its existence to further emphasise my lack of ability to perform the task for which I had dared to campaign and to justify the narrative they had spun, one that would be used to disqualify my bid in the ongoing campaigns. Her monologues had stressed the many ways in which I was unfit for the position I was campaigning for. That they preferred my opponent for the role, they made no attempts to hide. She was everything I wasn’t. I was informed of the need for my withdrawal from the campaign. I walked out of the office past the head office block in a daze.
I was met by the boisterous sounds of students milling about and others making their way to the dining hall. In that room where my time had stood still, the lunch bell had rung. Waiting outside my classroom was the incumbent. She had heard about my summons to the headmistress’ office. Between heaves and with tears running down my face, I recounted what had been said to me, the ultimatum to withdraw from the campaigns and the order to do so quietly as to maintain the façade I arrived at this decision on my own.
Do we know when change is occurring to and within us or do we like a butterfly morphing into its new form simply arrive at our new state and embark on life as such? We are inevitably changed by our varied life experiences consciously or not. I never thought the two incidents were connected until a random conversation several years later in which I was startled to see the correlation between these experiences. As clear as a bright morning sky I could finally see how the one triggered the other. My immediate decision to withdraw from the campaign process once it was announced there’d be interviews with the staff members was a preemptive decision to protect myself from facing off with teachers banded together in their “territory”, and empowered to do, say, and be whatever they want regardless of its detrimental impact on the recipient. Anything to get their way.
And to whom do children turn when the ones with the utmost authority in their space are the perpetrators of violations against them?
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