Taking a Walk down a Memory Lane: Encountering Utaz Marial Mamaal and Markos in Kakuma Camps 1993 In the spirit of a discussion started few weeks ago by my friend Akol Aguek Ngong I will be writing mini episodes of my counters with teachers back in Pinyudo and Kakuma refugee camps. This first episode happened in May 1993 in Raja Primary school in Kakuma. As the title suggests the occurrence revolved around two teachers – Marial Mamaal and Markos, a Nubian guy whose last name I have forgotten, but his actions are indelibly ingrained into my memory. As a way of background to the story, those who came to Kakuma in August 1992 would remember that we started classes in September of that year. To most of us, that meant repeating standard 4, which is the class we were in when left Ethiopia in 1991. However, time was not on our side. September being a third term in the Kenyan education curriculum meant that we have missed two academic terms of that year and will have to repeat standard 4 comes January 1993. This made some of us who want to compensate for the lost time impatient. And here comes the story!!! After spending the first term in standard four 1993, I one day I joined a group of other pupils who want to skip standard four. To do this, we tagged along those who have just arrived from Sudan and pretended that we have just arrived with them. Mr. Deng Acuoth, one of the school inspectors, sent us to Raja primary school and on arrival, Utaz Marial Mamaal immediately recognized some of the pupils he previously taught in Aweil Primary School and he immediately suggested an outright rejection of our admission on the basis that none of us came from Sudan. However, Utaz Garang Thieu (Mr. X), the school deputy head teacher and a fair-minded individual decided that a test was a better way of assessing who is ready to go to standard five. On hearing about the test, we were relieved as it was a better option than unceremonious sending away. BUT! What we didn’t know then was that Marial Mamaal was determined to ensure that we are not admitted at all cost. And it is here that his partner in scheme, Markos, came into the picture. Both teachers teamed up to set the test. The two worked out that the entire test was going to be marked out of 90 – With Mathematics component marked out of 30 while the English section takes the remaining 60. As an example of how determined both men were in ensuring we fail the test, the two men set ridiculous questions. In mathematics, we were asked to find a square root of 44. Just imagine a standard four pupil grappling with that problem! For the first time in my four years of writing exams, my palm started to sweat profusely. Log tables were light years away and all I had to do was sweat! Not to be out done, Markos asked us to write degrees of some words. The only word among those that I can still remember today is good. Again, to any standard 4 pupil, degrees are associated with mathematics and not English. Had something told me he was looking for comparison adjectives I would have had my day, but that was not the case. To cut the story short, I failed the test. I got 20 out of 90, which was a big fail. I remember three people were successful in the test….Deng Majok, Awar Ayuen and I guess the third person is Diing Arok, but I am not sure. But I refused to give up. As soon as I saw my marks, I thought about another strategy. This time I went to the head teacher, Mr. Kang Marialdit and told him that I just arrived from Sudan where I was a standard 7 pupil, but I have realized things are more advanced in Kakuma and therefore, I would like to join standard 5. His face lit up with excitement and I was admitted class five C. My trick works!!! Contributions are welcomed from those who wrote the test in class five B in Raja Primary school on that day.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 23:52:06 +0000