On the evening of last Wednesday as I was heading home from my hometown of Kiserian, I spotted a man near a certain T-junction not far from Kiserian. The man was clad in torn, dirty and filthy clothes. And he had put on three pairs of trousers, one which he had worn up to the knee. His style of dressing clearly showed he was mad.
While the mad-man was crossing to the other side of the T-junction, there emerged a young man of my age who began bullying him. The young man commanded the mad-man to go back to wherever he had come from. Even though I didn't say anything, I didn't like the way the young man was lording it over the mad-man. I thought to myself, "Why can't people sit down and read books and be nice to each other?"
Seeing the young man bully the mad-man has reminded me of another bullying incident involving dogs that I witnessed at one time in 2008 when I was heading to church at All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi. During that incident, several dogs were barking menacingly at a timid dog. Given the intensity with which they were barking, they seemed poised to maul the timid dog to death.
I was curious to see whether the barking dogs would harm the timid dog. So I paused to observe what would happen next in the riveting dog drama. Guess what! The timid dog stayed put. It didn't run away. It didn't bark at the furious dogs. Instead, it silently stayed where it was until the charging dogs got tired of their barking and melted away from the scene one by one.
As I reflect on those two incidents (of the dogs that barked at a timid dog and of the young man I saw bully a mad-man last Wednesday), I now fully realize that this world is full of bullies, both in the animal kingdom and in the human race. I don't know what motivates animals to bully each other. But for humans, I know it's because bullies get satisfaction from seeing those weaker than themselves suffer.
I have personally been a victim of bullying a number of times. Back in 2005 when I was in high school at Starehe Boys' Centre for instance, a schoolmate once punched me on my face as we were heading for a morning parade. And he punched me for no reason at all. Being the timid boy I was back then, I didn't retaliate. I just walked on as if nothing had happened.
Then in 2015 when I was teaching piano at a certain music school in Nairobi, I worked alongside a teacher who treated me in a manner that bordered on bullying. He would silence me when I was talking, command me to go clean my shoes and accuse me of taking the school's music books.
During one lunch break, the teacher called me to the room he was in. He asked me to sit down. And when I took my seat, he said to me matter-of-factly, "There is a complaint about you."
To be honest, I had done nothing wrong to the best of my knowledge. So I wasn't worried in the slightest about what the complaint could be. And when I inquired from the teacher what others were complaining about me, he kept mum. I think he was just trying to scare and intimidate me.
Later on, I pointed out to the teacher that he was routinely acting too tough on me, something I didn't see him do to other teachers in the music school. In his response to my comment, he said that he was just straightening me out to make me a better person. I didn't respond to his reply.
But a few weeks later when I got fed up with his bullying, I called him aside on one afternoon and informed him that I would no longer tolerate his never-ending commands. While admitting I was imperfect, I told him I didn't like the way 90% of his words to me were commands. So I asked him to share stories with me instead of issuing me with commands all the time. I finished my talk by warning him that I could erupt like a volcano if he continued treating me in an overbearing manner.
As it happened, I quit teaching at the music school a week after my heart-to-heart talk with the teacher. I therefore didn't stay long enough to observe if his attitude towards me had changed. He however seemed humbled by the bold and gentle manner in which I had confronted him. Truly, Abraham Lincoln had it right when he quipped that bullies are the easiest to lick.
By the way, a month before I quit teaching piano at the music school, I had heard complaints that that teacher who was fond of bullying me was not tutoring some primary school pupils. It therefore turned out that he, too, was imperfect. He was just looking at the speck of sawdust in my eye and not paying attention to the plank in his own eye.
My beloved reader, this world is full of bullies for shizzle. And they are everywhere: in church, at school, in the workplace and even in the streets. I therefore strongly advise you to stand up for yourself and speak against those trying to intimidate you. Don't let anyone get too comfortable in disrespecting you. That's all I am saying.
RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story about dealing with bullies, you might also enjoy another one on "Part 1: Appreciating Mothers" in which I'll narrated how my mother saved me from a certain bully when I was a boy. Ty❤️❤️❤️