SCHOOL MEMORIES: The death of Mrs. Kyooma

It had always been unheard of for a cow or any animal in the school farm to have a name. Everyone rightly figured out that a name would force some form of attachment to the animal and that would make it difficult to eat it.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

It had always been unheard of for a cow or any animal in the school farm to have a name. Everyone rightly figured out that a name would force some form of attachment to the animal and that would make it difficult to eat it. But then we got a new English teacher who was very healthy…depending on what your description of "healthy” is. Well, her face looked like a balloon filled with air and the back of her neck was swarming with overlapping meats. She had a very large bossom, a thick waist, a shimmering behind…I think I needn’t go on. Just take it from me that Mrs. Kyooma was indeed a very large woman.

One of the Saturday mornings as we sat in our classroom idle and therefore noisy, Mrs Kyooma entered and told us to be quiet. As soon as she left, one of the students went to the blackboard and drew a picture of a cow and named it Mrs. Kyooma. And with that, we agreed that it was time to make a journey to the school farm. We set out to find a cow that resembled her most. And when we did find it, we named it Mrs. Kyooma.

Mrs Kyooma the cow became our pride and joy, our new found love. To be honest none of us loved her but we were just bored souls, out of causes to fight for. So then, every Saturday morning, we made it a point to go to the school farm to make sure that Mrs Kyooma wouldn’t get slaughtered. If any of the butchers looked at her, we would chant, "Our cow! Our cow! Our cow…!”

The school administration tolerated our idleness. That was until Mrs Kyooma the woman got to know what we had done with her name. Seeing as she was too selfish to share her name with another living thing that resembled her so, she went to the Headmistress in tears and demanded Mrs Kyooma’s (the cow’s head). Mrs Kyooma was slaughtered the following Saturday. It felt wrong for my class to eat her but we decided that if we didn’t, her death would be in vain. And her meat was mouthwatering.