Ginger Warrior

Mr N. is my counterpart of the somewhat smaller Secondary School in Bole some 5 kms from the Primary site in Gerji. The sites are of a similar size (the Primary School spent its first 4 years at the Bole site) but there are 437 Primary students in comparison to a record high at the Secondary School of 201 students.

Also new to the school, it is Mr. N.’s first time as a Senior Manager, but fortunately he is bright and learns fast. He quickly sets up a gmail account as SecondaryHead@ for his one and only original email address is The Ginger Warrior (and i liked sending intro emails to Ginger Warrior). He lives just three blocks away from my apartment and we try and hook up at least once a week for a bit of dinner or an evening drink and a smoke on the verandah. 

Originally from the Welsh capital of Cardiff, Mr. N moved to Nairobi 12 years ago where he met his local wife, brought property and vehicles, and have two lovely kids 7 and 2. Unable to get internal promotion, he jumped at the chance of running a school for three years, to enable him to develop his C.V.   He has relished the opportunity, and is similarly dismayed at the way the school is operated. We share an equal loathing of Administration who hinder the simplest of requests at every turn, and who are also based on the Secondary campus.

“You’re lucky to have them on site where you can vent at them every day,” I tell the Ginger Warrior.

“I so wish they weren’t here. I just want to hit their smug faces all the time. I wish they didn’t even exist.”

He tells me tales of his slack-ass teachers, no books marked, no supervision coverage and very little homework. Of students who are thrown out of class for “talking” and teachers giving “private study periods” in Week Three, whilst they spend the lesson surfing the Internet and playing on Facebook. 

"I'm gonna fire a teacher by Christmas to make an example of them," he snarls menacingly.  

I am also delighted to learn, like myself, he spends at least part of the week picking up rubbish and litter on the compound.