SCHOOL MEMORIES: The oxygen consumer

Today is an extremely hot day. So I am inside the house dripping with sweat and breathing in air that’s so hot it might as well be steam. When I was about six years old, I developed the habit of sunbathing. To cure me of it, my mother inflicted pain on my bottom. When that didn’t work, she told me that the sun was going to roast my skin. And if the sun roasted my skin, the cannibals would come looking for me at night to make me their supper. I imagined myself chopped up in little pieces and the mental picture instilled a fear that took prayers and a lot of willpower to conquer. And even though I finally conquered it, I was already so accustomed to hiding away from the sun that I couldn’t reinstate the habit. So I always stay indoors on hot days, breathing in different air elements and letting my lungs pick out the oxygen. I’m guessing that’s how the respiratory system works...I wasn’t paying attention when they taught the topic. But I was paying attention when we went to the school computer laboratory for the first time. The Computer teacher Mr. Mbabazi wanted to keep the laboratory tidy and thus he asked us to leave our shoes in the doorway. This kind of arrangement would have been fine if that the lab hadn’t been lacking in ventilation; most of the windows were kept shut. So the only way we could access fresh air was through the door. But the doorway was filled with shoes which were emitting all kinds of intoxicatingly horrible smells. I swear to you, my eyes always got teary and sometimes my head reeled. Nonetheless, it was the one chance we all had to get rid of technological illiteracy. It was also our only way to communicate to the outside world since the public phone booths often broke down and didn’t provide for privacy. The computers were few and oxygen supply was limited. We competed for both. But it was harder to compete for oxygen because Mr. Mbabazi had a very large set of nostrils and took most of the air whenever he breathed in. Because of that, we nicknamed him the oxygen consumer.

Education

SCHOOL MEMORIES: The oxygen consumer