By Gilax Ngoya
Human beings are very interesting creatures who will always crave for something new even if it means replacing the bad with the good.
In the past, schools where places where learners were holistically mentored and molded and not places to dread per se.
During my time in school at Ober Boys in Homa Bay, I vividly remember how Monday and Friday morning assemblies were not just mere gatherings of belching riot acts by tutors and prefects on duty.
These convocations were punctuated with public reading of the names of students whose family and friends sent them intriguing missives through the post office.
I consider learning in a mixed secondary school as a blessing. Boys and girls sat in the same classrooms without necessarily seeing each other as ‘couples’.
I reminisce with nostalgia those years of yore. Every week, individual students received letters from different writers, an exhilarating experience that catapulted us to the ninth cloud. It was not business as usual for those who never received love letters. Some would write for themselves and give the head boy so that their monikers were mentioned at the hallowed assembly grounds.
Whoever read the love letters during assembly made sure that it was fun picking them as names were being puffed and pronounced. Your name would be called while the rest of the school rejoiced with might and main. One day, when the gods of grace, luck and serendipity smiled broadly, I received up to five letters on a chilly Monday morning assembly.
One outstanding thing about these missives was the process that followed the acceptance of the envelopes. The recipients would open them with flair, read and begin analyzing them before giving the letters to boys to rate them. Experts in the queen’s language would mark and rank them on broad day light. Sometimes, the recipient would write a reply then hand them over to the legion of copy editors; gentle giants who penned love letters with great grace, fineness and finesse.
These love letters were thoroughly edited. The writer’s handwriting had to be elegant and excellent. For how could one write like a tired or retired medical doctor and expect to win the heart of a good girl from another school? Editors were also careful and ingenious enough to append good graphics to the write-ups. For example, you could find one with the heart sign or a festoon of flowers.
The letter had to be clean like cotton. Grammar had to be good and without grievous goofs for recipients of these missives never had a chance to heed to the wise words of Alexander Pope, “To err is human; to forgive divine.”
At some point, a letter would be sent with the name on it shared by boisterous boys. This required the four young men to read the letter. It also required requisite skill in arriving at the owner of the letter, something only the wise ones could do. Even in such cases, no one fought over such letters, depicting how high school scholars thrived at problem-solving and conflict resolution.
The art and craft that the writing of love letters brought out in students was more than the ordinary writing we see and seize in these times and climes. The epistles were carefully-crafted pieces that evinced marvellous mastery of English language and literature. The lines and lyrics in those love letters were well-thought-out overtures that would change any damsels heartbeat to a drum beat. Reading them was akin to reading Song of Songs attributed to Solomon the son of David.
The words in these letters were sweet and pleasant to the mortal ears. In Central Kenya, you would meet sweet lines like: You are the only bean in my githeri. When you came to the sultry shores of Lake Lolwe, there were statements like: You are the only fish in my large lake. These letters taught teens to be imaginative, creative and innovative in grammar and its usage. It translated into very quality scripts when it came to creative writing in class work.
Inasmuch as we discourage such behavior today, the pros of the behavior were more than cons. The penning of the pieces welded students together like malleable metals. Students came together to write, type set and analyse emotive texts. One could not be dirty with words unless the team allowed it, which was difficult to find.
It was some sort of interesting infatuations, just a beautiful blend of magical realism, which Victor Ochieng’ calls magical realism. In the whole scheme of things, the characters were pen friends. Some just met during release of joint examinations, debates, sporting activities, et cetera.
To pen letters full of lustre, one had to read and research about aspects of grammar like classes of words, phrasal verbs, subject-verb agreement, twin words, et cetera. One had to listen to the tone and mood of the writer in the letter. It was not the short-form texts we see today that assail smart phones. The rhyme and rhythm in the paragraphs brought out some might and heft of puissant pens. Without seeing the person, the letter would speak to your soul and spirit as if you were standing side-by-side exchanging some romantic arrays.
