For the first two terms in my first year as a high school student, I was bullied relentlessly. Other boys my age experienced the same difficulties. Students in the upper classes would force us to wash their uniforms, make their beds, tie their shoelaces, and so on. Failure to do this led to a beating. In order to avoid that, I would always do whatever the big boys told me to do. When I enrolled in the school, my mum had told me to keep out of trouble, and I wanted to be obedient.
One Saturday afternoon during game time, I was participating in sports as usual when an older boy ordered me to kneel, then sing our country’s, Kenya’s, national anthem while dancing on my knees. Instead of standing up for me, my fellow teammates just stood there watching. After several minutes of doing what he asked, I couldn’t feel my joints anymore. But when I told the boy as much, he just laughed and told me to go on.
I became so exhausted that I had to lie down, and this made the boy very mad. He picked me up by my collar and slapped me so hard across the face that I couldn’t feel my jaw. I tried to plead with him not to hurt me, and this created a scene. At that point, my fellow schoolmates came to my rescue and I used the chance to run to the dormitory.
