“Hello, I am Mary. I am the school’s janitor.” Mary said, stretching out her right hand for a handshake.
“Hello Mary, I am wongi. It is nice to meet you” I responded warmly. It was my first day as a teacher with no prior experience .
“It is good to have you here. All the teachers here are very warm and welcoming and I'm convinced you would enjoy your stay here. And oh, stay clear of the Mr. John. He doesn't really like people.” Mary said with an honest smile. It was evident that Mary was a conversational individual.
“Mr. John. Right. I could say that I will stay clear of him but I don't even know what he looks like.”
“Mr. John is an outstanding character. He's a dark, sturdy, middle aged man with a huge birthmark on his face. He is always angry so it shouldn't be a problem recognizing him.” Mary indulged while I nodded to everything she said. I was impressed by how well she described Mr. John but I was more impressed by her vocabulary. She spoke fluent English.
“Thank you so much Mary. I have a question for you though.”
“Let me hear it.”
“I hope I'm not prying too much but you speak so well. What is a person like you doing as a janitor here?”
Mary smiled lightly. I could tell that my question made her nervous and that wasn't my aim.
“This would be a story for another day, Wongi. And I have work to do. I'll see you around. ” she said as she walked away.
Maybe I should have just kept quiet instead. I clutched my handbag and the lesson note the head teacher gave me earlier tightly. All I knew was I was supposed to teach the kids and I was also supposed to avoid Mr. John.
I walked into the class assigned to me and got a warm welcome from the kids. They all sprang up together and sang
“Good morning aunty.”
“Good morning pupils. I am teacher Wongi and I will be your new class teacher.” I looked around to get their various reactions. I could hear squeals of joy; it felt like the pupils were happy that their previous teacher had been replaced.
I motioned for them to take their seats as I quietly walked to my seat at the rear. Not long after, teachers started coming in to teach. The English teacher was an absolute angel, same with the social studies teacher. The third period was reserved for mathematics. As the teacher walked in, the pupils' countenance immediately changed.
image is mine.
A man walked in with a long cane and two textbooks. He dropped the textbooks loudly on the first table and kept his cane right beside the table. As usual, the pupils got up to greet and he didn't respond. Instead, he adjusted his glasses and stared directly at me as if to scrutinise me . The intensity of the glare was unsettling and I could sense a bead of sweat forming on my forehead. I smiled nervously and he immediately took his gaze off me.
“The man fit Mary’s description perfectly. This had to be Mr. John” I muttered under my breath. His teaching period was long and somewhat boring. He was a very angry man who didn't hesitate to yell at or flog the pupils for the smallest mistakes. Certainly not a very likeable figure.
My first instinct was to bring Mr. John’s behaviour to the head teacher’ attention but then I rethought my decision. The man had clearly been a teacher there for a while and all the other teachers knew about him so maybe they chose to ignore his behavior.
Along the line, I dreaded going to work because of Mr. John. During my short stay there, I had already had so many terrible encounters with him. One of such encounters was when he called and accused me of wearing the wrong uniform for the day.
Apparently, the staff were to wear different colours on different days. It was a wednesday and the colour of the day was white and black. On that very hot day, I wore a short sleeved white polo shirt instead of the regular long sleeve shirt I always wore to prevent discomfort. School officials had no problem with this but Mr. John did.
He stopped me in the middle of the school’s courtyard and started yelling. He screamed about how I wore the wrong uniform and how my gender never seemed to take things seriously. He went ahead to say that I was starting a revolution and because of me, the rest of the teachers would start wearing whatever they felt like.
I stood there quietly assimilating all the words he spewed but one sentence kept ringing a bell “You are starting a revolution”. Could it be that Mr. John was terrified about my presence and how swiftly I blended in even without any prior teaching experience? I shrugged it off as I wasn't going to allow a bitter human being to spoil my day. Moreover, that wasn't the first time I had such an encounter with him.
One morning, an angry parent badged into the school premises holding her child. She was very furious and was yelling so much. The head teacher tried to calm the lady down but she wasn't having it.
“Which teacher did this to my child! Eh! Which one of you?”
All the teachers came out to the courtyard to get a grasp of what was going on.
“Oh! So now all of you are silent?” The parent yelled. “Chi Chi, point at the teacher who did this to you” she said to her daughter.
The daughter slowly pointed at Mr. John. This was about to get interesting and you could tell by how all the teachers listened attentively.
Mr. John stepped forward as cocky as ever and tried to direct the mother to a corner but all his efforts were futile.
“So you're the teacher who gave my daughter so many injuries! Because she asked you a question…!”
“Madam, I didn't..” Mr John tried to speak but he was cut short.
“Shut up, let me finish! What did my daughter do to deserve such treatment? Do you have children? I don't think you do because if you did, you wouldn't be treating my child like an animal…” the lady went on.
Image is mine.
Mr. John stood there with his tail between his legs. Suddenly, the man who always had something to say couldn't utter a single word. He finally got a taste of his own medicine and from the looks of things, he didn't like how it tasted.
The ragging mother asked that Mr. John be put in check and that if he wasn't reprimanded for his action, she was going to withdraw her kids alongside other kids she introduced to the school.
Losing students wasn't a risk the school was willing to take so they assured the mother that Mr. John was going to be called to order.
I don't know what the school authorities did or said to him but after the incident, Mr. John took up an entirely different personality. He was not a threat anymore and the school authorities made sure of this. The remaining months I spent teaching were smooth and less terrifying as it was meant to be.
Love🤍