RESTLESS URBAN CAMPUS STUDENTS
Any upright thinking living organism would not mischievously assume that students are idle young men and women. Yes! The multitude of comrades is struggling to make ends meet as they imbibe the white man’s knowledge between the stuffy four-walled rooms in the backstreets of Eldoret, better known by locals as Eld.
Leave alone the witty self-proclaimed shujaa wa maendeleo, Governor Mandago brandishing the maasai's fashioned club rather than the vibrant boys and girls carrying the commonly known as the kangaroo bags, one might think to be the serious intellectuals ever, doing research and yearning to invent the pandemic jab that will send the stubborn Covid-19 to hell forever. Their only business is in-and-out of classrooms, others deliberately miss the lectures or signed class attendance sheet nakusepa, as they put it.
Patosh, a friend of mine then, must have mastered ways to earn an extra coin in these busy streets, having nearly girlfriends in every faculty in Kisii University; he went an extra mile to sustain them. If you thought that education matters most, then you must be categorized with some few individuals characterized as bibliophile or machopi, or were they sympathized with hardly earned school fees from their parents? Patosh and many more, the likes of him, learning was not a priority rather than chasing the campus divas, the beauties with small wiggling butts with scanty dresses. If you will not find him playing casino, then he must be in a pool or tucked in a small cyber room browsing EPL and La liga, literally making a virtual investment.
Like Patosh, Matthew or Mato, who commonly linger around the school premises, always nyonayaring the free school wi-fi. He was analyzing the international football matches and selling odds at an affordable price and skillfully marketed his products, he would dash out a written piece of paper and said chukua hii ufilizishe muhindi (take this odds, you will fleece an Indian), and for real the betting fanatics were buying odds and within no time, they became an overnight thousandniers.
On Fridays, Mato and Patosh could just be irrigating their innovative brains and spoiling their campus divas in clubs. The more the mizinga dotted the table, the more thousands of notes fly to the hands of barmaids, they were going around like hawk-eyed county kanjos, and diamond music rented the air as the duos enjoyed watching girls tweaking. Thought was it not the old boy's prime stage full of life? They cared less anyway.
To whoever is reading this article. Not all the students belonged to hell, and since we all came from different backgrounds. Oh yeah! Different goals, inspired by social challenges bedeviled their remote villages and through this education, they wanted to find a permanent solution if not basic twined English, to speak in burials while giving out endless eulogies.
Some machopi, unlike Patosh and Mato, like the BBI document our thieves said to be leading our country to the Promised Land, Canaan, always buried their heads in books. Thanks to these few individuals they made our small library busy always. If they are not in class, they could be on their way hurrying to the respective hostels before dusk. Indeed, these were good girls and boys; fully adherent to their parents and ancestors' dos and don'ts they were given before leaving their villages, to join the academic democratic zone.
Thanks to the Kisii University motto; the University of 21st century, boldly scribed in every blue theme of the school that is headquartered in Eastern Nyanza land and what informed the initiative of installing Kisii campus in the city of champions? Or maybe they offered a 20th century model of education? Aah No! We couldn't dare to scratch our heads finding out the answers for such useless questions, and therefore, spare our small memories for mathematical statistics and cramming capacity for CATs, yes! at least to deck out our transcripts with few distinctions.
Here is where we all practiced as husbands and wives, and it's the ultimate reason behind the urgency of those moved out of hostels in pursuit of unlimited freedom and privacy in bed-sitter rooms to live with their 'couples'. With predictable regular meals including improperly cooked ugali, spiced water (the monotonous soup comrades swore never again to be part of any meal after leaving high schools), and a smell of meat to spice up the heavy supper. The hostels situated in Pioneer, Kokwas, Kapsoiya estates had no much difference from high school dormitories. The likes of my friend, Patosh, could not cope up with the stringent regulations of locking up the entrance as early as 9 pm, and kamunywezo addicts found it inconvenient staggering back to their rooms in the dead nights.
Praise the lord brethren, Oh no! This is just a mantra used by the campus-born-again comrades. You could find them holed up in a classroom, devoted their evening hours to prayers, which I think are the reason why a majority of the 'lost' comrades, the likes of Patosh, a buddy swore 'until death set us apart with the liquor.
Mary, I don't know if she was Mary, the mother of Jesus but the credible information close to sources tales rife about her, and apparently, she was a staunch believer of life after death. What she uttered strongly with conviction was in verbatim with her actions.
Ever since I came to know her, though she was one semester ahead of me, she carried herself around, dressed with skirts slightly below her pair of knees and hardly seen donned trousers. Unlike her counterparts, she was the holiest human next to Jesus, God among other adored saints in the holy books. Always in school kamukunji, Mary would be allowed to close with a word of prayer, and before she started her long and exhausting prayers, she would share her inspirational testimonies to irate comrades who were seemingly not interested with the salvation, rather than nurturing their spiritual lives with wines and spirits in the drinking dents.
I honorably appreciate Maries of those times. They made our newly acquired then, the 33-sitter campus state-of-the-art vehicle chauffeured around the streets carrying the holy group, to various spiritual seminars and rallies convened in academic centers including Moi University (that pride itself as the university of legends, being the first tertiary institution in North, South and Central Rift), kifaranga cha Moi University (UoE) among other small collages. The little Kisii University then, domiciled in towering Tarita plaza tucked in the very heart of Eld was felt and known all over.
Interestingly, the students could easily stumble upon their course lecturers in the streets, entertainment joints, and supermarkets which were normalized. And for this learned lecturer, we christened him Prof. Moran, for his daring tendencies of criticizing his boss while lecturing. He was independent-minded and called out to what he termed as autocratic administration of the school, and by doing this; he seemed to be leading a quasi-opposition wing among other members of the staff who kept their tails in between their legs for fear of an unforgiving deep state (the board of management). Prof. Moran apart from being academically 'radicalized', was a man of people, and the 'clubbing' community immortalized him as a philanthropist man, who bought a barrage of mizinga to comrades unwinding themselves after hustles.
That was the campus of our times before the coming of walambez and wanyonyez, the uncanny generation in which both male and female portray feminine traits and sharing of unisex outfits like ragged trousers. Gone are the days of independent-minded men and women intellectuals, all the best to your endeavors.
By Edward Kosut
The Standard newspaper correspondent.
The content creator
