In The Right Direction: Reminiscences
Posted by Edward Karani , Monday, May 17, 2010 9:44 PM
“Cute!” Theresa stared at the election campaign poster for one of the SONU candidates for the upcoming university students’ elections. It was her last in campus, but for any forth year student, elections ended in third year for them. Third year elections were special, because Theresa knew like everyone who was vying in the elections. They had all reported to school on the same day.
Just because she was not voting did not prevent her from attending the refreshments full campaign meetings. After all she had paid the forced subscription fee, for the students union. It was her right to be fully refreshed. She did not shy away from a free soda.
“Posters do make them look kind of cute.” She stood gazing at the frame size picture of a light complexion guy running for the executive post. He had really nice kissable lips and she could help but want to run her hand right round them, but something inside of her stopped her. “I have already met most of you.” She spoke to the other numerous posters on the walls. “You aren’t that cute.” She smiled as she leaned closer to read the graffiti written on the supposedly cute guy’s poster. “But it does prove that there are very good photographers in Kenya. I wonder if they know they are sitting on a gold mine.”
Most of the girls she had known from her first year (since boys are immune) had changed from naïve village girls, to hyper active Nairobi girls, presently the village girls who used to do all the house work while they were in the village, could not wash their clothes, and had to have the ‘Mama nguo,’ to do their washing for them. Apparently the detergent or washing affected their hands. Maybe it was the money that they had in excess that was disturbing them. The same village girls did not wear trousers reporting to campus, but presently they did not wear skirts, unless they were really short.
“Imagine this is the only skirt I have.” One of her classmates had told her as they were coincidentally walking to class. “Imagine I kinda washed all my clothes, aki I feel so uncomfortable.”
Theresa felt like laughing, in first year the same girl who felt comfortable in skirts and judged others harshly for wearing male clothing, they did not have any trousers all she had was long plaited skirts, that she wore with matching blouses, all the time.
Her accent had changed, all over sudden she spoke with a faked weng. Her hair had to be done every two weeks two. Those were some of the things that Theresa was going to remember about campus and smile, at times laugh.
At this rate it would be hard to recognize her classmate when she finally went back to her shags, That is, if she was planning to go back after the four years had come to a close. No, she wouldn’t she had already adopted an urbanite mentality, if her parents her lucky, she might visit them for Christmas. Presently this particular classmate was living with her drunkard boyfriend. Sugar daddy might have been the correct word to use, but the University society is no ordinary society, rules are different, you look at things differently, as a campus guy or girl. At no one time would you find a campus student stating that a classmate was going out with a sugar daddy, that wasn’t a term in the university dictionary. Dating was it.
The funny thing that Theresa noted, that students that came from these rural places referred to them as ‘shags’ and not home.
The thing that had amazed Theresa a few days after joining campus, walking around the halls of residence, and seeing buildings occupied by her peers, watching them walking around had made her heart to be filled with awe. It occurred to her that she was living in a community of close to five thousand students that were her age mates. A society that symbolized freedom and success, it made her feel great, like she had achieved more than she could ever imagined in her life. Like there was no greater success like being a student in the University of Nairobi. Well that was short lived, after a few weeks being in class, she ended up a frustrated student. It was this great community that made them change, because they had to change so as to fit in.
Over the next few days in her new world, it was obvious, you needed new outfits and shoes every now and then so as to fit in, the best place of purchase being Ngara, where you can get a second hand shoe for a thousand two hundred shillings, to the delight of many campus girls.
“But it’s a good deal.” The girls would defend herself. “Look at the shoe, it’s so beautiful.”
As a fourth year she was not planning to vote, there was no need after all she would be out of school in a few weeks.
Her time in the land of freedom was over. It was time for third years to experience the adrenaline rush that accompanied SONU elections, as well as the drama that made life in campus rather interesting, at times it was like living in a small replica of the Kenyan society. Everything that symbolized the entire nation could be found there. Tribalism, corruption, mainly in the student union, buying your way into anything worthwhile that you wanted, added to the frustration that the average student every day from most aspects of being a regular university student.
Third year was a special year for a BA student, it’s like when you realized that you are a campus student and you matter the most especially since the fourth years were leaving and they always acted like they did not belong any more. Anyway, they were too concerned with getting jobs, finding spouses, looking for houses, moving in with boyfriends and girlfriends that they did not love for financial reasons, than acting like the rest of campus students. They were scared of going out into the real world. With one foot outside campus and in the real world, every day they acted less like campus students and more like men and women in society. Soon it would all be but a memory.
Had campus changed her? Off course it was hard to pass through the University of Nairobi and come out the same. She had changed; her beliefs had changed, the way she thought had changed changed.
She came in a nineteen year old girl and had left a twenty three year old young woman. She came in single, now she was leaving campus with her boyfriend, her first year boyfriend. In as much as she had heard that campus relationship never worked and that campus guys never married campus chicks, it seemed to be rather different for her and Jason, four years later they were still together. Jason had suggested that they moved in together after school was over, then they could go and visit her parents later.
“Where do I tell my parents that I am staying?” She asked him.
“With a girlfriend.” Jason replied.
Its not that he did not love her, he loved her a lot, over the years that they had been together, they had been times that they almost broken up. In second year he had been involved in an affair with another girl. He was tired of their relationship since it seemed to have stagnated. When Theresa found about out about it, she broke off with him, it was then that he realized that it was Theresa he wanted after all, he fought hard to get her again. It took him a whole semester and a long holiday to get her back. He loved her but if they went to her parents, yet he did not have any money for a church wedding or for dowry.
Jason was a Christian, but over the years it seemed that as Theresa’s faith grew, his seemed to be waning.
“We are going to get married eventually but I don’t have a job yet Tess.” He confided in her.
“I know.” Theresa said to him. “But I cannot lie to my parents, and I know they will not approve of us living together.”
“He seemed dejected. “What do you say?”
“Let’s wait.” She said. “I don’t mind waiting.”
He had just walked out on her. She was still waiting to hear from him.
Campus had stirred something new in her, a change that she could not resist, or prevent from taking place. Something in her had changed. She was not just Theresa a young woman, but Theresa the soon to be undergraduate from the University of Nairobi. At times it made sense to her; at times, it not did not seem to be that important to her, or any one around her, nonetheless it implied a lot. It implied that it was not the same girl that had been admitted at the University. It was a whole new Theresa.
