This weekend, a popular politician was going to build bridges in a different constituency.
The host was visibly not very happy that an outsider had come all the way to build a bridge in her neighborhood.
Or maybe she does not have rivers in her constituency so she did not see the need for bridges.
As a result, she ordered the intruder to be shown the door.
The people to whom the eviction orders were given did not hesitate to execute the orders to the letter. The intruder was literally shown dust, because only a thick cloud of dust could be seen where the tumult was taking place.
The intruder was however not relenting. He insisted that he has a right to build a bridge in whichever part of the country he pleases. He also indicated that he can build a bridge even when there is no river. The fact that there is no river is not his fault, he was going to build the bridge and if any river was interested in passing under the bridge, it was welcome to do so.
He stood his ground and finally carried the day when the members of the public, also called a mammoth crowd in the political jargon, insisted that he must be allowed to build a bridge wherever he pleases.
At the bare minimum, they demanded that he be given a seat and watch as other people build their bridges.
The whole drama ended in him being granted a place to sit, but he was not allowed to address the mammoth crowd. He escaped with a roughed up attire and a dusty pair of trousers where he at some point sat on the ground and refused to leave until he was given a seat.
I was probably the only person watching the drama in the news who was not seeing the fun in the whole turn of events. I have seen and experienced beatings and it is hardly fun.
A week after joining Form Two and with the sophomore jinx catching up with us, it was time to realign the pecking order in the class. We had this boy called PK who was tiny like a small packet of unga flour.
Despite his size, he packed a good fight. Fighting prowess was greatly treasured, and a boy who could fight the highest number of colleagues in the class was held in high regard.
The quarrel arose after he called me a ki-boy or a young man who had not eaten the knife. I thought that was quite offensive. So I stalked him from behind and gave him a few sharp kicks on the shin. Did I say PK was a good fighter? I understated him. The young man was a tiger.
In a flash he was all over me.
He was swinging uppercuts in a torrent and all of them were landing home. I saw what looked like 50 cent coins and stars flying past my eyes. The spectating boys cheered wildly. I was mortified.
That was not even anywhere near the end of this drama. We had the school captain who was in Form Six. I bet half my audience here may not know what Form Six is.
It was another series after completing Form Four during which time you were an adult and most probably with a family awaiting you back at home. These were the only people who were allowed to wear blazers and long trousers in our school. We considered them as our fathers.
The school captain was about three metres tall and played volleyball, a game that gave him an athletic gait and sinewy muscles.
He was omnipresent and his past-time favourite was hunting down real and imaginary offenders and punishing them ruthlessly.
He landed on the fighting scene as if from the skies.
His other negative attribute was his half a foot-long fingers.
His slap was more or less like him gently coiling the fingers round your small face like a malevolent serpent, and violently ripping them away.
By the time he was through, we sported red faces and we still had to endure more shame by kneeling in the sun until his sadistic appetite was sated.
What he had in being a disciplinarian he lacked in his class work, and I remember him asking us “Why did you fought?” That to me was an unforgivable affront to English. But this was no time for being petty about grammar.
From that day I avoided physical confrontations lest a person of my former school captain’s stature landed recoiling slaps on my face.
