Punishments in high school over all kinds of mistakes are meant to discipline students.
It was a nice way of instilling fear among students and to ease control as well as the maintenance of the status quo.
Deputy head teachers were the champions and as the discipline masters, their mention always sent shivers and trembling to the victims;students.
Among the most feared punishments was 'calling rain' which involved kneeling, raising hands up and moving the fingers for a stipulated period of time.
The main disadvantage of the punishment was ailing joints and of course, shame as one could be made to kneel at a strategic position; one that that would ensure that one could be seen by the entire school.
Embarrassment was a lesson that one could hardly forget.
Sweeping classes, washing the pit latrines, weeding flowers, strokes on the butts among others, made the list but the most regrettable punishment in secondary schools was uprooting tree trunks.
The task was not only strenuous but also time consuming.
If you were unlucky to be a townsfolk who knew how to hold a jembe or axe through theory, it would graduate to be a lifetime worst experience.
If no good friends who could risk to salvage one, it could take up to two days, more than 16 lessons!
A view of a duo doing it in a neighbouring local secondary school, refreshed the sad but life-changing memory!