Uku Attack
Being fresh out of college I never imagined that I would ever again have to deal with the issue of ukus. Boy was I wrong. As a reading tutor at an elementary school, today I came in to do my usual routine and was instructed that yesterday the class had a “case of the ukus.” As goes with usual uku exposure protocol, the class would have to be at the school nurse’s office promptly at 10:30 for an extensive uku check. I would have to follow along because this uku thing is apparently serious. The teacher, a very nice and very knowledgeable old timer, apologized to me for the interruption and commanded her class, in a very authoritative and in-control manner, to get in a line and move on out. The first-graders walk haphazardly to the office with the teacher in the background urging the stragglers to get on task. Waiting for the school nurse to finish lecturing the kids on how disorderly they were running to her room and instructing them to not touch a thing in her office, I noticed the last girl in line and her buddy D whom I’d tutored in the past. She was scratching her head. Miss T. comes by and asks her, “Is it really itching? It must be itchy huh?” The girl shakes her head “No,” not wanting to call attention to herself. Miss T. turns her back to attend to the kids in the front and there is my little man D, kolohe little kid, the runt of the class, with a mouth full of silver, full on scratching his head like a wild man. D had a bad case of it. At least that’s what it looked like. By that time I’m itching all over! I imagine buggies crawling everywhere and hey, is that something walking across my neck?!?! The uku neurosis had kicked in. Plenty of parents of little kids have told me about this, their kids come home with a note and everything goes in the wash. Plenty baths for everyone and random tweaking and scratching everytime a breeze passes by. Later on that day I am tutoring in my room and here comes D with his tutor. As he passes by he flashes me a huge smile showing me all of his shiny teeth. It appears that D didn’t have ukus…and I’m all itchy!