Charo Samini Gohu

Yesterday morning I taught the Form One students how to use reflective pronouns properly, you know what I'm talking about - myself, yourself, themselves, and all the others.  After explaining the purpose of the reflective pronoun--definitely not as easy as it looks--we went through some practice exercises where the students would need to identify which pronoun to use in the blank in the sentence. 

The class participation began slowly yesterday - everyone was still groggy as it was the first class of the day and because it was raining cats and dogs, everyone was either soaked or cold.  After a couple of sentences, energy started to build.  After a few more sentences, it was almost a mad house. 

For number six, I called on Samini, who always raised his arm with a huge grin.  As he walked up to the blackboard in that gawky teenager way that only a teenager boy could pull off, took the piece of chalk and wrote in the right answer.  When I gave him a cheer, as well as a few of his friends, he went back to his seat with a shit-eating grin. 

Samini wasn’t a jock.  He never played football like some of the other boys.  He wasn’t a nerd, either.  He was a middling and average student, not the worst, and not the best.  He always had a smile and nice word for everyone.  He was always friendly and happy-go-lucky.  He did not give off the bad boy vibe like Ndaa and Amir did, nor a leader vibe like Emmanuel, Teresia, Joyce, and Karembo did.  Like I said, he was happy to cheer on Jumaa, Khamisi, and Baraka when they played football.  He was also born with some heart issues, and that probably was the reason why he did not play sports.

Yesterday morning, when I picked Samini to answer that question, I took an involuntary mental snapshot.  You know when some moments are just clicked and stored away in your mind, not by your choice, and yesterday morning Samini was one of them.  I remember vividly him raising his hand, answering correctly, and the shit-eating grin. 

After I taught both Form One and Two their English lessons, corrected some of the Form Two homework from the night before, I was ready to head to the primary school for tea, and for that, a ten minute walk is required.  As it was pouring, many students would attempt to run down the path some rolling up their pants and skirts to the knees, taking off their shoes and holding them as they run through the rain. 

I saw the back of Samini as he ran to the dining hall.  I joked and laughed with some of the other students who decided that the tea wasn't worth the run in the rain and stayed in the classrooms before I headed to the staff room.  That was the last time I saw Samini alive.

Five minutes after I reached the staff room for tea, in midst of a conversation with Mary, my counterpart, about Gone With The Wind in which I lent her, our headmaster came in with the announcement that Samini collapsed and passed on.  With my mind racing, along with some teachers we went to the dining hall to run inference, herding the kids out of the way, getting the lorry and putting Samini into the lorry to head to the hospital. 

His heart had just gave out.  This teenager, with his entire life in the front of him, will forever stay etched in my memory as a kid with a shit-eating grin. 

I write this full of anger and sadness.  I am angry for the lack of preventive care and precautions that Samini would have received if health care was more geared toward preventive rather than reactive here.  I am angry about the lack of training of First Aid and CPR.  I am angry that deaths of children is almost expected; I have heard people here saying that having only two children is like playing Russian roulette – the more children, the better chance you have of someone taking care of you in your old age.  I am angry with myself for feeling such anger, and I am almost angry at my American upbringing which is the cause for my experience / knowledge that this could have been avoided. 

That anger is now starting to become sadness; for the Gohu family, for the Kibarani and Pwani Secondary students, teachers, and staff, and for everyone else that he has touched. 

Like Samini did for almost every day I have seen and taught him, in his memory, let’s try to go through life with a shit-eating grin.