Let He Who is Without Sin Rock the Casbah

First off, I should apologize at that attempt of a witty title. Although, not only is it pertinent, but you have to admit that is a nice mix of idiom and metaphor. I mean really, really nice.

To the heart of the matter: A little over a week ago, the equivalent of the athletic director of my school asked me to do him a favor, me being the only other teacher concerned with sports. There would a be a soccer match that evening between our school and another, Kahororo Sec., at the stadium in town. Now, this man is downright lazy, and any time a job has actual work required he manages to shirk it. We all know a person like this, and I'll admit that at times I have been this person.

His problem was this: The stadium in town is a five kilometer walk (Davis - 3 miles) from school. Generally the school lorry drives the players there, but there were two obstacles to this, first the lorry was broken down, second the entire school had been invited. Now, he would have (<- read that with a very sarcastic tone) gone with the students himself, but he had some urgent issue needing his attention elsewhere. So I was awarded, no, hurled the responsibility of escorting about 500 students to the stadium, then back. By myself. Yay!

Shockingly, as this horde of teenage boys worked their way down the small path to town, nothing bad happened. I attribute it to the excitement they had to watch their school team play in the stadium. We arrived without incident and I was chagrined to see that the athletic director was already there (he had taken a taxi). Oh well. The game commenced, it was pretty some sloppy playing, but I imagine either team could hand an American high school team their nether regions (sorry Cal, but its true). These kids live and breathe soccer. Our students had even constructed a big Ihungo flag somehow, and were proudly waving it while never once sitting for the duration of the game. We were down 2-3 when the stoppage time was added at the end of the second half, and miraculously we managed to land a lucky shot just before the whistle blew, making the score tied. Rather than adding more playing time, the referee decided to go straight to penalty shots; the sun was beginning to set already.

Now here's where the excrement hit the air conditioning... As our students watched the penalty kicks, completely engrossed, a few brave idiots from Kahororo amazingly managed to steal the Ihungo flag and safeguard it back to their bleachers. If you have played Halo, imagine going solo on Sidewinder and getting the other team's flag on your first try. Yeah, it was an impressive feat. So what did Ihungo do? They armed themselves, and here is where my witty title comes into play. They armed themselves with stones from around the bleachers, and en masse begin to assault the perpetrators. I say all this in narrative, but at the time I had no idea what was going on, I too was absorbed in the penalty kicks, and at this time we were down by one. Just as the Ihungo students reached the Kahororo bleachers, the last of our players shot and missed. Kahororo had won. This had the unfortunate effect of exponentially increasing the rage of the Ihungo students, who thought perhaps we had only lost on penalty kicks because they had stolen our flag.

This is where I finally looked around and realized that there was massive disturbance occuring. I stood up, confused, to watch hundreds of students running in fear from where the battle had been joined. I didn't know it, but in the middle of this exodus, students from both schools were throwing the largest stones they could find as hard as they could at each other. And because I didn't know this, I decided to go try and figure out what was happening and see if I could put a stop to it. I arrived at the edge of the maelstrom on the Kahororo side, just in time to see one of my physics students across the way catch a stone directly in his face and go down. Up to that point, I was just confused. After seeing my boy take a rock to the face, I was pissed. Scared too, but more pissed.

Later, when my students would regale each other with how brave they had been in a time of danger, they would make sure to mention the actions of their teacher, Mr. Masanja. According to them, he tore into the Kahororo students, picking them up and throwing them just as they were picking up and throwing stones. He was yelling a hybrid of English and Swahili, and the only thing the students could understand was that he was royally pissed. When the students saw this 2 meter monster bearing down on them, they scattered, and the rock-throw melee ended. I think my students exaggerate a little bit, but I damn well did see red after watching that student take one to the grill.

I managed to walk across the now calm battlefield and check to make sure he was not seriously injured. I got him to his knees and looked at his face, it was bloody. But only on the lower half, it looked like the rock had hit him square in the mouth. He had a fiercely split lip which will heal and look like Angelina Jolie's, as well as a chipped tooth, but nothing more. In fact, I was amazed- there were no serious injuries on either side. I would be a liar if I said that the Ihungo students were not to blame, at least equally for this nonsense. When I reprimanded them severely, they were surprised and told me that "it is our culture to throw stones." To which I replied with the first and last curse words I've used in front of students so far. Use your imagination. After it was all over, I suddenly remembered the other teacher who was with me, who likely knew what was happening the whole time and didn't so much as lift a finger. Maybe teachers don't get involved here. That bothered me more than a little bit though. Someone could have easily been crippled, and he didn't even move...

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the troubles for the day. I now had on my hands 500 male students who had just lost a soccer match and been in a fight. They were a testosteronic mob. As we left the stadium, they wreaked havoc without pause. We decided to return to Ihungo by main roads to prevent problems, but this idea had little effect. A mob is as intelligent as its least intelligent member. Motorcycles and bicycles tried passing through the swarm of students, to be punched at, have their tires kicked, and even to be torn off of their vehicles. When we passed the police station, they threw rocks and taunted the police who came outside. For the first ten minutes, I tried controlling them, but one person cannot stop a 500 man mob. So I gave up. Maybe a better man would have stuck with them and argued for sanity for the entire 3 miles, but I said "the hell with it" and went to get dinner. The next day, the police were at Ihungo. That was no major shock, but I was surprised that they had only come for four students. These four were taken to jail on the count of stealing from various stores on the way home, but I think they were intended as a lesson. Scapegoats, if you will, but they became martyrs. The students protested, skipping classes as well as meals, until the headmaster arranged to free the four. Now they are heroes, and everything is back to normal.

Pretty crazy huh?