My classmates at Woodley - I'm second row, first on the left.

The noisy hall fell silent as the Headmaster stepped forward to read out the names, the Captains stood beside him smiling, giving nods and winks to their “chosen” ones. I heard the names of my friends read out: Tim the hundred yard dash, Rod one of my best friends but in a different House would anchor the relay and so it went until finally my name was read out: Gordon Wilson, the egg and spoon race. Egg and spoon race! How humiliating! This was going to be worse than last year.
I pouted about the selection all day. Through English history, geography of the British Colonies, even through Bible studies where Mrs Knowles used a felt board to stick up cut out coloured characters representing the various biblical characters in her stories. How would David have felt if instead of being cast against Goliath, he was relegated to run the egg and spoon race!
I knew enough not to protest with the selection made; there was nothing to be done to change the Captain’s selection. He was an older boy, a prefect, who thought a great deal of himself. If I challenged him I knew that it would only make matters worse for me.
That evening I rolled the potato around my bowl of my dad’s chicken curry, barely participating in the ritual family conversation over dinner.
“Why so glum, Gord?” Dad asked breaking his naan and dipping.
“You’ve barely touched your food,” my Mother’s concerned voice chimed in.
“He was chosen to run the egg and spoon race!” my sister Susan chortled, her laughter infectious enough to inspire my older sister Heather and my parents who all laughed along. My face turned hotter than the curry.
I think my mum could see that I was legitimately upset, and so tempered the mood. “If that’s what you have been chosen to do then you have to be the best at it.”
“Did I ever tell you that I once had to run the egg and spoon race?” Dad always had a way of letting me know that he’d been there done that, and usually he had, but I thought this a bit too convenient although his advice stuck. “The key is not to drop your egg. Don’t try to out run them; just try to finish without dropping your egg.”
I thought about their advice, and it made sense, don’t drop the egg and be the best. The egg and spoon race required me to run one hundred yards with a boiled egg on a soup spoon with one hand tied behind my back. If the egg fell off the spoon, I was required to stop and pick it up without the aid of my feet and of course my tied hand. Any who have tried to pick up an egg with a spoon will know that it is not easy. I resolved that night that I would spend the three evenings I had left before the race practicing.
After dinner I went to the kitchen and asked our cook Opala, a Luo from Maseno who had became a part of the family, if he would hard boil me a dozen eggs so that I would have plenty to practice with the next evening after school and every other evening until Sports Day.
Every evening after school I went outside and under the shadow of a huge avocado tree, I practiced running with the hardboiled egg. At first, it fell off almost immediately, but the more it fell off, the more I was determined to master the art of egg and spoon running. After a while I was able to set a gait that kept my right hand steady and the egg perfectly balanced. Slowly I tried to increase my pace, until I found the perfect combination of gait and pace that kept the egg glued to the spoon. By the night before the big day and I finally felt good about my chances.
Friday was a beautiful sunny day. The sports fields were green, the grass fresh from the last of the long rains. Whitewash lines had been run to outline the lanes for the track, and the sport fields were dotted with yellow, red and blue flags representing the colours of the three Houses competing.
Chairs had been set up along the top of the bank for attending parents to watch the proceedings. I hoped mine would be amongst them, but their attendance was not certain due to heavy work commitments.
All of the students, proudly wearing yellow, red or blue T-shirts were seated by House on the field, while officious teachers with clip-boards and shrill silver whistles to blow hastily walked or jogged amongst us making sure that we knew exactly when our race was to take place and where we had to line up.
The egg and spoon race had been scheduled for late in the afternoon, and the day had gone very well for my House, Mt. Kilimanjaro. Four points were awarded for a first, two for a second, and one for a third place finish, and because there generally were six participants, two from each House per race, it was possible to score six points in a race with a first and second showing. In past years Mt. Kenya, the red house, would have been well ahead by the afternoon, but such was not the case this Sports Day. Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya were virtually tied.
I spent the morning cheering on my House mates, our screams blending with the shrill ululating cries of the Muslim women who prepared for a wedding that was to take place beyond the fence that separated the school ground from their village. The women finally dressed in purple, pink, orange and gold prepared the wedding feast over open fires, and the smell of their spiced food wafted in the air around us.
Our lunch was a sliced cucumber and butter sandwich with a thin broth soup, provided by the parent volunteers, and by mid afternoon in the hot sun, I was glad that I had offered half my sandwich to Penny Law who had done brilliantly in her races in the morning. Truth be told, that’s not why I made the offer, she was smart, pretty and a good athlete, and I was sure that she had let me catch her during a game of kiss-chase a few recesses before. In any event, by the time Mrs Lawson blew her silver whistle in my ear announcing my egg and spoon race, I was happy not to have a full stomach.
During the morning events I had kept as close eye on the rows of chairs on the bank, as I had on the scoreboard which still showed Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya in a dead heat. I hoped that one of my parents might have attended, but I saw no sign of them until I was standing at the starting line, hand tied behind my back, my boiled egg sitting firmly in the bowl of my spoon.
That’s when I saw them: my mother, dressed in a flower print cotton dress, her curly blond hair blowing in the light breeze, sat next to my father who stood, jacket hooked over his shoulder on the thumb of one hand the other in his pocket. Suddenly, inexplicably, I wished they hadn’t come.
The principle, a handsome, athletic man, was poised to start the race. I was lined up with one of my House mates and four competitors, two from each of the rival Houses. The principle leaned forward and I heard him call “on your mark, get set…” then he fired the starter’s pistol. BANG! The six of us were off!
At the twenty yard mark, I was running last, but then the tall skinny kid wearing Elgon blue dropped his egg and by the forty yard mark I was a close fifth. In my peripheral vision I saw two more eggs fall off spoons, and by the sixty yard mark I was third behind one red and one yellow shirt, my House mate. Then my House mate dropped his egg and at the eighty yard mark I was running second, but the kid in Mt. Kenya red had a good lead and was headed to the finishing tape when he made a fatal error, he looked back to see where I was, and in that split second his egg left his spoon. He scrambled to try to pick it up, but I was passed him feeling the finishing tape hug my chest. I had won!
I turned to see that my running mate had recovered his egg and was running past Kenya red, to come second. We had taken a maximum of six points, and our House Mt. Kilimanjaro was ahead on points! We were mobbed by the other kids in our House, and the Captain gave me a slap on the back, “I knew you could do it Wilson, that’s why I chose you!” Of course, it had to be his choice that had made the difference; I just smiled at him happy to have helped the team.
I looked up to the row of chairs, and my mother and father were both clapping, big smiles on their faces. Later on the car ride home, I saw my father’s eyes in the rear view mirror as he spoke words I still remember today.
“In life, Gord, you don’t have to be the fastest, nor the fittest, just be the most consistent. Don’t let the egg fall off the spoon.”

My father and me a few years later

The shenzi died almost instantly, and my dad took me inside to dress my wounds.
“What the hell were you thinking?” My father had opened up the large medicine cabinet and, having cleaned the wounds to my hand and shoulder, was applying something that stung.
“I was just playing.” With the shock subsiding, my breath came in sobs. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t to blame for the attack, but my dad’s tone caused me to reconsider.
“That stray’s sick Gord, it could have killed you, why didn’t you come inside?”
The fact that I didn’t see the dog until it was on me seemed like a long explanation and one that would lead to a much longer conversation with my father than I wanted, so I simply shrugged, and tried to control my tears during the bandaging of my wounds.
The rabid dog attack was the topic of conversation that night after my mother and sisters had returned. My mother had the keys to the gun locker with her, so when my father heard the commotion he had rushed to my assistance without a thought to his appearance, and seized the first weapon that came to hand.
As an anthropologist, my dad had spent time amongst many different tribal groups including the Masai, which is where he had acquired the spear. He had heard, and told my sisters and me many tales of young Masai men killing lions with such spears in their quest for manhood and had seen them throw such a spear, but that was the first time he had actually thrown one.
Because my father was sure that the dog was rabid, he had the head of the dog removed and sent away so the brain could be analysed. We were fortunate that the Mission in Maseno had a hospital and a growing agricultural research facility, as human death from transmitted rabies was not uncommon. Within a few days the unwelcome news came confirming that the intruding dog had been rabid. I would have to undergo twenty-four painful injections over the course of a few days, directly into my stomach.
Both my mother and father worked hard to prepare me for what was to come.
“You have to be brave,” my father instructed.
“It will all be over before you even know it has started,” my mother counselled, “and we will be right there with you.”
When we reached the white-washed walls of the Mission hospital, I was taken down a narrow hallway and into the room that doubled as a treatment room and surgery. The long steel bench was hard, cold and unwelcoming to my half naked body as I lay on my back, exposing my small belly.
The nurse, who was also a nun, wiped my bare belly with some kind of disinfectant that smelled horrible, and smiling at me, she raised the hypodermic needle that looked like one of my mother’s knitting needles. I was terrified, grabbed my mother’s attending hand, and closed my eyes. Two very painful needles a day and twelve days later, I lived to tell the tale.
Flicka, who had the good sense to avoid the rabid teeth of the mad dog, also avoided the disease. We had him vaccinated, in far simpler fashion that I had been, just to be sure. He lived a long life with us. I was always thankful that he had reacted as he had, although, as dogs will, he passed the incident off with a slurp of his long wet tongue, and a twinkle in his eye.
For my bravery my dad bought me my first Daisy air rifle which as I grew older and more daring, only served to get me into a whole lot more trouble.

My dad has left us but the spear still holds a position of prominence in our home

• *The term shenzi is a Swahili word that means barbaric, uncouth, uncivilised, or savage. In this instance savage seems the most applicable.