Being a newbie is tough. I’ve spoken about it here before.

One of the most humiliating things I’ve ever done as a newbie was flirt with a wall just to get accepted into my high school St. John’s Cadets. Yea, you read that right: a wall!

The St. John’s at Starehe, just like anywhere else, was a prestigious club. But because it was in Starehe, it was run by the cool, rich kids. You know, the few non-sponsored boys in Starehe. The ones with big crocs and really soft, quality sweatpants.

The lesser version of the cadets was the scouts troop. Since I was in form one and eager to find my identity and place in the school’s social circles, I applied for almost every club. My interests were in the ‘real’ clubs, the Scouts, the Cadets, Jopo la Kiswahili. Eventually I made it to the tryouts for both the Scouts club and the St. John’s Cadets.

The scouts’ tryouts were cool. Chill leaders. We called them ‘commandos’ in a deep Luo accent, because like much of Nairobi, Luos run the show almost everywhere. I breezed through the Scouts tryouts. I mean, come on, once a scout, always a scout.

But the Cadets were the real kizungumkuti. (That’s a slight flex to tell you I’d also made it into Jopo la Kiswahili.)

The problem with the Cadets was that I wasn’t a rich kid, nor was I a cool kid. There’s a difference. Find me behind a tent and I’ll explain it to you.

The cadet leaders were called ‘sergeants’, or ‘sajos’, again in deep Luo accents. Sajos were the senior, wealthy kids in school. Boys picked up by government Prados with dark tinted windows at the end of term. The ones who could smuggle noodles and phones into school, and teachers would look the other way because the kid could put in a good word for them with their wealthy parents. Nkt, the level of bootlicking in this country!

Anyway, you only made it into the Cadets if the sajos liked you, or if you were rich, of course. Because we wore civilian clothes, you could spot a rich kid from a mile away. They didn’t wear opato (slippers) and creased shorts like I did. They didn’t wear the same crocs to games every day. Rich kids had actual boots for football, sandals for the dorm, and sneakers for the weekend. Nothing about my appearance suggested opulence.

But when you’re from the village like me, you believe in fallacies like merit. That if you work hard enough you can enter any room. So I went for my cadet interview, eager to showcase my first aid and knot-tying skills. A bit of SDA Pathfinder-ing helped too.

When I got into the room in the school clinic, it was a tiny room, with only one high window. A dim, almost threatening light shone down on three intimidating sajos staring at a feeble Reagan with an ear-to-ear grin, eager to impress.

That grin was slapped off my face, literally, as I was told to get down and do push-ups while they shouted and hurled insults in my ear. You know how men psych themselves up in the gym? Like that, only this time you could feel the malice in their tone, directed at a first-former, along with the smell of undercooked noodles in their breath.

“YOU WANNA BE A CADET, HUH?” they shouted, voices overlapping. “YOU WANNA BE A CADET? GIVE ME 40… RIGHT NOW!”

You know the kind of toxic masculinity Andrew Tate and his minions preach? This felt like three Tates in a room, shouting at me. Telling me my bloodline was weak and I could never make it. What did they know about Karachuonyo men? It was all manageable for me though. The same thing had happened at the Scouts tryouts.

Until it got weird.

I was told I could handle the physical aspects of being a cadet, but how far was I willing to go to actually be one? I thought, What else could I possibly do? Run a lap around the school? I had assumed cadets were just glorified scouts. I’d also heard rumors about systematic gayism within the cadet structure, but at that age my naive, innocent self thought gays only existed in Netflix American high school movies. But in a cramped room with three sweaty men, anything can happen.

Seeing that my spirit wouldn’t break, even after insults about Karachuonyo men’s hairlines, I was told to do just two things to pass the tryout. Just two.

First, I had to approach the wall to my left with a pick-up line and convince it to agree to action two.

Action two was to rombosa (is that what we used to call it?) the wall and convince it I knew what I was doing. You know, dirty talk into the ear of the wall. After all, walls have ears, no?

At first, I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. I’d heard of bullying, but I didn’t think it would happen in our school. Everyone seemed chilled. These tryouts were even a formal event that the school administration knew about. But I kept wondering how flirting with a wall related to being a cadet. I wanted to walk out and settle for the Scouts troop, but at the time my ambition knew no limits. Naively so.

So I delivered my best pick-up line to the wall and suguad it like no one’s business, like I was alone in the room. Just me and my lovely wall. The sajos stayed completely silent, taking notes. Not a single smirk on their faces. After about three minutes of convincing the wall I was the right guy for her (or it) they shouted at me to get the hell out.

“Did I get in… or…?”

“TOKA HAPA mbwa… unakatia ukuta? Shoga wewe…” were the last words I heard as the door slammed behind me.

As I walked down the clinic hallway, I could hear them laughing their lungs out. The remaining interviewees didn’t understand why I held my face in my hands. They still carried that form one innocence, trying their best to fit in.

When the list of those who had made it into the St. John’s came out, my name was there. At the very top. Oh, yes. I had put on a performance in that room. On that list I stood alongside rich kids who only had to bribe the sajos with a few noodles on githeri days, without having to embarrass themselves just to belong.

This wasn’t even the worst thing I’ve done to fit in. But I’d like to hear yours first. What’s the worst thing you’ve done to enter a room?

To feel like you belong?

✍🏽Reagan.