ALTHOUGH (OZO)

Yakobo had become so popular in class not for his genius or for anything whatsoever but for his ignorance.he could not even read a full sentence in English. we always waited for the teacher to choose him so he could answer a particular question.
We always laughed but sometimes it was always sad. Some teachers especially Mr. Adagala never understood his weakness. Immediately Solomon would say an answer contrary to what he expected, Mr. Adagala would call him and give him six of the best.
Not that teacher Adagala was that bright, sometimes he would do the simple sums and then  gives us the hard sums saying that teachers are allowed to refer.
After giving us the hard sums he would just come with the answer book and read the answers and warn us against asking any questions.
Back to Solomon  now he was in class seven every body expected him to know how to read and write but that was not the case with him.
On this particular day Mr. mise had come to stand in for our teacher of English who was sick. It was a lesson on comprehension and the teacher was choosing pupils randomly. a pupil would read a paragraph and the teacher would choose another one.
Now it was the turn of Solomon to read, but there as a problem, the first sentence started with the word ALTHOUGH.
Solomon's neighbor a small boy who always did over eat and ended up producing gases from every pore knew that the word 'although' may end up challenging  solomon, nudged solomon and told him the word was although.
Solomon stood and read the word although ( he read as ozo), then he became quiet.
We waited patiently but there was no more response from him.
then it dawned on us, he could not read the next word which was ''the''

YAKOBO

He was a short guy. He always walked barefooted cause his parents could not afford to buy a pair of shoes for him. IN FACT MOST of us didn't have school shoes, so we ended up having cracks in our soles. Somebody would joke that you could hide a five shilling coin in the cracks.
He was quite a talkative and argumentative boy. MOST of his arguments were done in vernacular, he was not that bright to argue in English or Swahili.
That did not deter him from inserting an English word in sentences during conversations even if the word was out of context or the tense was wrong.
He always had something or a story to tell.
His stories would always begin with the word ''kwattend'' meaning he attended a certain function, mostly a funeral.
His name was Solomon but we had nicknamed him Yakobo.
The nickname had come about in hilarious circumstances.
The deputy headmaster Mr. Mise who was also the religious education teacher had asked us to name Jesus's disciples, so every pupil had raised his or her hand.
Solomon not wanting to be left out raised his hand.
after several correct answers from the other pupils, it was now the turn of Solomon to state a disciple.
The teaching was mainly in English but Solomon decided to give his answer in mother tongue.
        ''YAKOBO'' meaning Simon Peter.
And soYakobo he became.