It often seemed like teachers retreated to a secret location where they deliberated on how to punish us for being on holiday for far too long.
After lengthy talks, they resolved to make us run, scouting the hilliest and rocky paths that would punish us for having come from home.
You could argue that these teachers had absolutely no life for subjecting us to torture. Even though you are a Kalenjin, your chest is burning as if some tiny creatures are barbecuing something inside you. And the feet gave in a long time ago, getting weaker and weaker with each stride.
Other than those opening days when teachers determine you needed a run, it was a mandatory thing for form ones to do. The first weekend, they would take a run, usually supervised by the school’s star athletes. They were called ‘mbugarists.’
Most of them had this Kipchoge kind of face, the kind that spoke how hardened they were. They were lean and fast. They tackled races with the ease of a knife through butter. With these characteristics, they were tasked with discovering new talents.
As you laboured uphill, they would shout at you like donkeys. They would wheeze past you, run three or four kilometres then run back to urge you to run faster. They didn’t do that in a nice way. You just came from the village with zero interests in athletics.
When the race was over, the fastest monos would be recruited into the secret cult of ‘mbugarists.’ These guys trained every evening, not in school but went outside. Those who were not interested in athletics found it as an avenue to hit on village girls and sneak contraband to school.
Every evening as they were let off the gate by the ageing watchman, they would go to their various rendezvous and come back sweating. Each would be sweating for different reason, methinks, and would take them contrabands they were sent to their respective owners.
These mbugarists rarely won anything, at least in my memory. Yet they trained every day. You can’t say that they were somehow better than you if you do train every day. There’s something you are not doing right.
The mbugarists were just that. We found the name mbugarist being widely used. Like any other nickname, we unquestioningly adopted it but I do guess it was derived from ‘chana mbuga’ and corrupted to add flair to it.
#hivisasaoriginal