Striking Season

Today in the staff room a teacher mentioned that two well established secondary schools in the area went on strike over the weekend. At one school a student pastor was suspended and the other students struck out of solidarity. The result was that the entire student body was suspended. I am not sure of the cause at the other school, but the school's next door neighbor happens to be the police station and they were kept in school under the station's watchful eye.

This was kind of funny to me since my own school had an averted strike of its own just about two weeks ago, and upon asking the teacher it seems that June is striking month in the Kenyan school calendar. He was not able to explain this phenomenon to me, except that once one school strikes over an issue it inspires the others to follow suit.

My personal experience took place on a Friday, and as far as I know, it was the first in the area. Maybe it inspired the others, what leaders we are. It was about 6pm when I heard that the students were refusing to eat the githeri. They were claiming that it had been laced with lamp oil in order to dull their sexual excitability. I of course jumped right up for a bowl, and the githeri was as good as it ever is inside of the school. There were not any rocks in this bowl, which is my biggest criteria for grading. I absolutely do not think that the school intentionally put lamp oil in it, but there are always slight off flavors in the githeri from bugs that have been feasting on the corn only to find themselves part of the feast or from dirt. Who knows why they thought that this githeri was any different than normal. After refusing to eat, the principal was called, and at about the time that he arrived I was at the shop next door buying milk. When I was returning by the back way I heard shouting and rocks, which caused me to back track and go to the front gate to see what was happening. By the point that I reached the front gate the principal was standing next to the flag pole shouting and all of the students were silenced. From talking to the neighbors it seems that a few students started throwing rocks as he drove up in his car. There was even a girl studying in class that got hit and began to bleed as a rock broke through a classroom window. The rest of the rocks seem to have been thrown at the iron roofing. Who knows what they were trying to accomplish. They were then quieted down. I think that the principal handled the situation well. He told them about the proper channels for voicing concerns and about the struggles of the school. He also told them about the privileges that they had just sacrificed by committing this act. It was decided that really there were only a few instigators that were very dangerous. They were dealt with by the police and we all went to sleep. Since then we haven't had a problem.