We were young and stupid, but one of our number on the teaching staff (which included several TEArs) of Kagumo School in Central Province, Kenya, had just completed his master’s thesis and wanted to celebrate. There we were, sitting around and feeling rambunctious. Why not set off some fireworks—someone had roman candles, another had a few cherry bombs, and others had the odd firecracker [like, how the hell did they have this stuff?]. We thought the array of things would scare the students studying in the classrooms only a bit and gave consequences no further thought. Watches were synchronized and the fireworks went off. Tee, hee.

We retreated to the house of one of the perpetrators for some beer and the telling of tales. Then the headmaster knocked on the door, and we expected doom to descend. In an unexpected gesture of magnanimity, however, the old goat told us that he realized what had been done but that we needed to go out immediately to the grounds to calm the students who thought that their world had come to an end. That shiftas had come down from the NFD to attack the school, that djinns had come out of the forest, and worst of all that many had flashed back to the Emergency when there were nighttime curfews and folks might be shot at without warning. Students had dived under desks, had jumped out of windows, had run away for the night. To say that we all felt foolish would be an understatement.

This experience was sobering but has stood as an excellent example of unintended consequences for me ever since, and I have used it in various conversations over the years.