I don’t have many memories of my childhood. I would peg the slim flashes I have at about when I was 5yrs. Most of these are of course reinforced by the fact that they are all embarrassing and my family gets a laugh out of them every now and then.

I had never seen myself as a teacher until recently. Or rather, I knew that I would make a poor teacher at an early age. There is a 5 year gap between me and my younger sister. This means that she joined nursery as I joined class 4. As thus I was expected to help with her homework. That meant trouble for me.

I was never a fan of school. I always viewed it as punishment. The only reason I ever did my homework was to avoid more punishment. Now try telling this boy, who just hurriedly scribbled through his homework to sit some more and help his sister. A sister who is only starting school, and can’t quite make head or tails of whatever is written on her book. Stuff literally made me cry! “Giki gitakiri kindu kinyitaga.” Best translation I can come up with, “But this thing doesn’t get a thing!” Nope, I didn’t make a good big brother.