Out Of Character
Another Gem of a piece from my friend Fred Geke . During my primary school days, being caned was a ritual of sorts that had to happen daily. Every time we did something wrong or failed to do something, we were summarily caned. If neither happened, some teacher would come up with something that would justify a few lashes. We were caned individually, and we were caned in groups. We were caned on the buttocks and on the palms of our hands. When the teachers got tired caning us, they got us to cane one another. And we all accepted this as a reasonable part of the learning process. One day during evening parade, the teacher on duty randomly summoned a bunch of us to the centre of the parade ground and commanded us to lie down. He went on to administer a thorough beating. In the course of the beating, a fountain pen I had in my back pocket broke in half and spilled its contents, staining my shorts. As soon as we were dismissed, my step-sister – on seeing that ink sta