UTENGANO; A HARD NOVEL FOR A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT.

KUNA mengi ambayo Kazija anayachukia (There is a lot that Kazija hates). The tragedy of using windows 7 in writing Swahili is that there will always be the zig-zag red underline. If you cannot proceed to the next word without making sure that the previous is grammatically correct, then you are done. It will take a month to have an article. There is no choice for review and synonym translations. The problems are as many as what Kazija got at the start of the book. But I do not hate that Swahili is not programmed here. English is a better option. Kazija has an excuse too. That is why she hates many things. Why hate? What are the effects of hate? What does hate do self in return? Does it satisfy the hater? Are these questions even critical? For a high school student?

I should have written this article in Swahili. I am apologizing for my reduced interaction with Swahili in writing. The last time I wrote a paper in Swahili was in KCSE Insha paper. It is a misdoing that only once have I reflected my day in the diary in Swahili though I request people to express their days in the favourite tongues- for those in school to do both in English and Swahili. This is an implication that I am contributing to the crippling of this historical tongue that has the best of what Arabs and Bantu could offer. And as usual, this article will inform our discussions if you have read the book at least twice.

Set books are aimed at exploring the world of the students and helping them learn from mistakes and forge solutions for a better society. Secondary schools are the largest inhabitants of Kenyan population in education and powerful citizens to be. When they come into the free world where college life is not as demanding and strict as high school, then the one who make poor decisions for self is likely to fall in life traps. Though parents do still have a say in their lives, the control over them reduces when they are less learned or poor in means and brains to provide for their needs.

Cover page- Maimuna is fleeing from her innocense to unknown fallen life

This book is a favourite to some. They scored A’s in Swahili at the end. But did they understand it? It is not because I had enjoyed reading it at the first instance in form 2 because we were advised to familiarise ourselves early in time. It is due to Mr Kamudenyi, the Swahili teacher. He was not only demanding for extra class hours but also too frequent in repeating the words of the novel when moments allowed. It calls for a good teacher, infused with imaginary qualities, alert to the contemporary happenings and rhyming them with the novel for better understanding. Even with all that, there was still something unknown about it that I will discover every time I read again.

An average high school student does not necessarily reason beyond emotions, adolescence and present pressing issues like fees, uniform, friends and food. It is a time that things start being funny and ignorance slowly departs. It may be followed by delinquency and mere foolishness of sneaking, striking and junior infidelity. Expecting such a person…of 18 years and below to internalize themes in six books and be creative to discuss conflicts in literary manner is an obvious challenge that systems offer so that one does not seem genius of age. They read because exams were due. They underlined lines to remember and not to understand. Funny statements were easily recalled wrongly. The understanding spark had not been kindled in their brains. Only teachers understood it; no wonder the exam irregularities that seeps many heads in campuses. 

Who decides which book becomes a set? Do they start by running an understanding research to the students? Are students involved? Or is it just a decision of the this-is-fine-for-them curriculum developers? In many literary writings, there are deeper understandings that only the prepared minds can fathom the heart of the writer in the situation. Boys and girls in secondary school do not find fun therein because they mostly understand as hard and unintended as the words follow each other during cramming prep sessions.

For a fact high school is the peak learning environment to many Kenyan students because less happen to join colleges and tertiary learning institutions. Friends have written about the making of men from boys during secondary school studies. Campus is but a confirmation of the integrity learnt in high school. Bombarding them with such a heavy book, first because they cannot afford to buy it and end up sharing in class, add to the language that is foreign to their mother tongue and challenging to the nature of education they have been offered all through to secondary level leaves them with an option of failing. And so, Kiswahili has D’s and E’s. It is not their fault, isn’t it?

The cultural set-up of the book, coastal region is foreign to many students. And many of the books the students are tested of. Being aware of the environment of fiction can explore understanding that is different from a foreign place. Most of secondary schools in Kenya are in the densely populated western and central Kenya regions. They know not of the cultures, way of life and language of the coastal people who are more similar to Tanzanian coastal people where the author comes from. They have hardly travelled to the ocean or seen mosques. They have not listened to the music down there nor associated with brothers and sisters who hail there. It is as foreign as reading about the Promised land of grace Ogot. The story though fictious it should appeal to the mind of the age in environment and language.

Said A. Mohammed had written a scholarly book expressing the reason as to why the society is ailing. In his own uniqueness, he scores a literary award from me. There are leaders who take their positions as opportunities to be proud, extravagant and rude. There are sons and daughters ready to disobey their parents. There are people ready to pounce on one’s soul whether you have wronged them or not. And of course there are the seemingly good people who give hope and life to the ailing society. Like God in the Bible he has created, given attributs, lifted and failed characters willingly. He has done the society a favour by expressing the sequence of actions in a flowing lingual. Maybe a high school student has not done and seen anything to know the vengeance life  both to the innocent and the guilty. Not even  prefects understand well their responsibilities.

The language. It is not a road-side Swahili but a completely crowned language full of its purpose- to inform much in the least words possible. Not even English and French has so many proverbs, similes and sayings in such a small paragraph than good Swahili has. Though the Ibo in Chinua Achebe’s works could use a proverb here and there to make words palatable, it is in Swahili where a full critical conversation can be proverbial. At the end of the book lies many vocabularies and a Swahili user will at one point search for the meaning of words that somehow seemed differently used to inform something else. Swahili is a good language. And a good language keeps a society safe from falling to external influence. It intrigues thinking. A swahili lover will agree.

The only character students can relate to in the book is Maimuna at its start. At least she seem young as they and innocent. She outgrows them when she proceeds and grows to become a harlot and wife. If the teacher did not bring the story home, then it will be as good as new and only fit for the exams. Consider a research among the college students asking them who among has considered rereading the high school set books after school. The answer will reflect the Kenyan Education Motto- Studying for Exams. And not even the English teacher dares to read Swahili set-books to assist students in collective understanding. There is just no time. Or many are just lazy. They will be amazed, in this information age to see you reading Utengano, a past high school novel. You will be viewed as a strange idler.

Good books can’t be rated. This book is a set-piece. It should be read by parliamentarians, high school leavers, gender students, writers and parents and everyone who have the brains. And one book is always never enough, you will have many others to read, compare and reflect upon. If the society heed what authors said because it is all written and nothing new is expected the world will be a better place to live in, for it already is to readers and writers. 

‘Pesa? Pesa nini mbele ya utu?’