For most secondary school students, morning prep is most dreaded. Eight out of ten Senior Six leavers will tell you they are glad they won’t have to attend compulsory prep anymore.

For some of us, morning prep was used to copy notes and not to read as the norm was. The silence always made it seem like bedtime and my feeling was fully shared, or rather exaggerated, by a particular classmate I will call Trina. Of course it was an eternal puzzle, if not a temptation, for us to sleep instead of reading. One day, like always, we settled for evening prep at 8 p.m. following a heavy special meal at our school, Bweranyangi Girls School.

With all teachers and concerned school leaders around, silence in the prep rooms was a must. We all tried to read as much as we could until the digestion effect kicked in and took its toll on many a student, notably my beloved little Trina.

After nodding heavily with eyes blinking lazily, Trina succumbed to sleep, on her desk. On most days silence prevailed as long as the two hours of prep lasted. But no sooner had Trina put her entire comfort in the hands of a desk than she fell off with a heavy thud on the floor. The class reaction was spontaneous. Trina struggled to get off the floor as her classmates jiggled and burst into laughter.

From then on, Trina earned herself a nickname: Tulo. Whenever she entered class in the absence of a teacher, the class rose to the chorus of Tulo, tulo kwata omwana bwetomukwate ngoli mulogo, kale wulira. This was borrowed from a popular Luganda song and the words loosely translate as, “When sleep fails to subdue a child people say you have bewitched it; just imagine that!”

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