He is tall and slightly slim, impressive-looks, well-shaven hair and beard, in short, one with a respectable appearance. At first sight, you could be fooled to think he is one with a humble demeanor and cool character but spending a few hours with him reveals his actual character.

While still in school, he made a name for himself, not for being brilliant in class but for always getting in fights, quarrels, and arguments with teachers, students, cooks, cleaners et cetera. Most times he got penalized for this and that; escaping from school, drinking, smoking, gambling so on and so forth.

Gideon had a special liking for girls, one time he was suspended from school for kissing a girl  without her consent and more so, in the open, love letters were often found hidden in his books, he one time almost cracked a boys skull with a stone in a fight over a village belle.

He always found pride in mocking others and making them feel bad, he was so infamous among new students because of he teased and bullied them. For example one time he went to a class of new S.1 students disguising as a Mathematics teacher, gave them some work to do (instructed them to only write on the first pages of their books), collected their books and disappeared never to return.

Gideon was so lazy despite being physically strong, dad’s whip was seldom idle punishing him for work undone or half done, he usually bribed some of us (young ones) with little tokens of sweets to do his potion of work.

The "wrecker” (as he preferred to be called) was never short of trouble or mischief, he seemed to derive pleasure from seeing other people suffer or caught up in trouble: For instance, on several occasions, on his way back home, from school he would hit and smash window glasses of cars(without reason) with  stones or sticks before taking flight, sometimes he splashed filthy water at innocent pedestrians.

Our father flogged, slapped, ridiculed and scorned him, in an effort  reform him but this produced slim results. Dad eventually gave up and dispatched him to the village to stay with his grandmother, still, this didn’t deter him from picking on his old ways, soon he got back to drinking and smoking and started conflicting with neighbours.

It was not long before he fell-out with  grand mom(despite her motherly and tolerant trait) and left home to become "a limitless drinker and smoker”, he ended up joining the army and  his mischief  followed him there, we get reports of him oftenly being punished  for various misdeeds or deeds.

In spite of all his shortcomings, Gideon has a pleasant side, he possessed a high level of humour. He has a talent for mimicking personalities and could invent rib-cracking jokes and this made him a darling among many.

Ever since he joined the army, we miss his hyper character, for it always warmed, mused and entertained us.
ivan.ngoboka5@gmail.com