Our first and last encounter with Ms Barbara Kiconco was less like one between a teacher and her students and more like one between a boy and a girl. When she entered our classroom, we clapped and showered her with compliments; we told her that her yellow blouse and red skirt were good for her dark skin complexion. It was a lie but all the same, she blushed and told us that we were beautiful.

It had been a while since we had been taught by a student teacher. The last one, Mr Tumuheirwe, had walked out of our classroom, out of the school gate and out of the teaching profession. This happened because one day as he taught us, he received a phone call and he excused himself, leaving his coat behind. At the end of the lesson when he picked it up to go, a rat jumped out of the inner breast pocket and into his shirt, forcing him to undress. Months later, we heard that he had started a general merchandise shop.

I’m therefore sure, and I would bet my life on the fact that by the time Ms Kiconco walked into our classroom, she had been cautioned over our behaviour. Over the years, we had come to be known as the worst behaved, least cooperative, most disrespectful...the list of our wrongdoings was long. The list of teachers who dreaded the thought of teaching us or refused to set foot in S.3D was long too.

Ms Barbie, as she insisted that we call her in an effort to be friendly, was undoubtedly nervous. And having established that she was trying really hard to impress us, we played hard to get. We refused to laugh at her jokes and we introduced ourselves with the wrong names. We also continued to call her Ms Kiconco to give her the impression that we were hell-bent on being distant.

Ms Kiconco refused to come back to S.3D. Apparently, she couldn’t handle the pressure of not knowing when we were going to do something horrible to her. We wrote a letter telling her that we loved her and that we wanted her back but we received no reply.