CAMPUS NEWS At a glance...

BY SHADRACK KIRONG

Money stolen at Soweto Mess

Staff working at Soweto Mess on Monday morning woke up to surprising news of mysterious disappearance of some wads of cash. It is reported that the theft allegedly took place on Sunday night. Unlike the other usual burglary attempts, the Soweto burglary was seen by many as a smooth operation, in that there was no sign of break in or any damage of property in process or manner in which someone got accessed to the Electronic Cash Register (ECR), where the money was.

Sources privy to the Soweto Mess, estimated that about Sh. 27,000 was stolen.

The cashier who was on duty that day has since recorded a statement with the security. Police are now investigating the theft.

Rates abnormal, Safaricom subscribers

The recent increase of calling rates from Sh. 3 to Sh. 4 per minute among Safaricom Subscribers, has prompted and tempted many of its users to come up with counter measures to sustain themselves during this Shilling Crisis era: others resulting for the kuhama one to other networks.

Indeed, extraordinary situations call for more extraordinary measures. It is now evident that many comrades are becoming seasonal migrants to other less cheaper Communication Networks like YU, Airtel, Orange.

“...Me natumia laini ka zote nowdays, coz hiyo story na 4bob daily Kwa safcom siwezani nayo’’ said a Comrade, expressing his view on the impact of hiked calling rates.

“No Monkey business! Niko YU” added another comrade.

Mosquitoes a nuisance at Comfort Residence

Comrades residing at Comfort Hostels are now complaining of mosquito menace. The residents are raising an alarm to the concerned authority over the increasing swarm of the malaria causatives, which have been recently giving them sleepless nights.

“... kama hawataki kufanya job tutawatoa before wamalize term yao’’ a visibly irritated Comrade intoned.

This comes barely a week after The 3rd Eye highlighted of stinking latrines at the Comfort Residences, a problem which is up to now yet to be addressed.

Speaking to The 3rd Eye yesterday, Muso Health Director Patricia Tuwei, said that she was aware of the problem but was quick to add that the matter has been forwarded to the university’s Chief Medical Officer and the Catering and Hostels Manager Mr. Chesang’.

THE SHAMBA BOY SERIES: I got a long way to go and much more to learn

BY MAALIM SALAT

Very soon, many of you will miss me. Not because I will die, but because I will either run away from this university or I will transfer. I will transfer because I find life in this place very difficult. Life is difficult not because my helb pocket money is over but because people insult me whenever I try to befriend them or when I ask for help.

Some tell me things I don’t understand. You know this is the first time I hear the language you town guys speak. Sheng’ is still and will forever remain a mystery to me. My primary and secondary school teachers find it hard to say some English words (because it is taboo to say them) so I never learnt them.

There was a time when one of the girls I dated asked me if I am man enough. From the village knowledge that I had, I knew that a man is any human being who wears trousers and has a beard. That day I went to my friend whose name means mwenda wazimu in my mother tongue to tell me what a man is. He is called Law Laawe.

His advice did not help me at all. “For you to become a man,” he started “you have to break something called fajinity”. I expected him to tell me that fajinity is sold in the supermarket. In fact I was ready to go and buy it in the afternoon so that I break it and become a man.

I asked him how it is broken once I bought it. “acha ujinga”, he started reprimanding me as if I married his sister, “kwani wewe ulitoka dunia gani?”. Because I did not have a second option, I knelt in front of him and begged him to tell me what to do. If any of my relatives would hear what he told me, I would be sentenced in absentia to death by stoning but lucky I am because I am the only man from my village to ever join a university. So hiyo story haitafika huko shambani.

One thing led to another and I found myself in one of the rooms in hostel-J with a lady who would make me a man. But the first thing she told me made me realize that I will never become a man. “You look nice,” she started the conversation before adding, “Can you really blow a girl?”

What I heard is that I look like a member of Al-Shabaab, that I am carrying a bomb in my pocket and that I would explode any time. I started promising that I will not harm her; “walahi I will not blow you. Mimi habana alshabaab. I am a beaceful berson”. She just opened the door and let me out peacefully. The only thing I could hear was “jinga hii”. She did the rest of the cursing in her mother tongue so I could not understand.

Without any further ado, I ran to Hostel-A where relatives and “very good” friends of MUSOW officials live to beat the sleep out of this guy who lied to me. Law Laawe lives in Hostel-A because he campaigned for one of the officials. I live in the muddy C-houses (the fifth option where one goes to when he misses a room) because I campaigned for the wrong guy. Anyway, that is a story for another day.

These days I walk around with a bottle full of petrol so that I can blow a girl when I get a chance in the near future so that I do not embarrass my village and my community. I will become a man very soon.

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This is my second last article for this semester and I hope you have enjoyed reading my sick humour. If you were a fan of the Shamba Boy series, you stand a chance of getting airtime of up to Sh. 250 next week. All you have to do is answer the Shamba Boy questions that will be published on this page next week.

SI KUPENDA KWANGU

by ASIDAGA (MALENGA MKARIRI)

Jina langu ni Klombod Omene. Wengi hunitambua kama Kamoshi. Siku za hivi majuzi, maisha yangu yamefunikwa kwa wingu kubwa la huzuni. Upweke pia umepiga kambi kwangu na katu haubanduki. Sina wa kunena naye ndiposa nikaamua kuandika kifungu hiki. Hasa ningependa kuwaeleza mambo ambayo yamenijiri muhula huu.

Juzi nilijaribu kuzungumza na kidosho mmoja ili nimweleze yaliyokuwa moyoni. Mara bila kutarajia alinikatiza na kusema kuwa mdomo wangu ulikuwa unavunda kama kaburi la maiti. Alisisitiza kuwa, hangedhubutu nililokusudi kwa sababu hakuona lolote la maisha ya usoni nami. Kana kwamba hakutosheka, alinieleza kuwa tabasamu langu lingerudisha nyoka pangoni. Si kupenda kwangu, mimi hujaribu kupiga mswaki.

Tangu juma lililopita sijahudhuria mhadhara wowote kwa sababu ya kisa kilichotokea katika mhadhara wa mwisho niliohudhuria. Dada mmoja mrembo aliyekuwa amekaa kando alizirai ghafla bin vuu. Alipelekwa zahanati na kufanyiwa huduma ya kwanza akapata nafuu. Daktari alisema kuwa mrembo huyo alikuwa amekosa hewa safi ndiposa akazirai. Maneno haya yalinikumbusha mwingine aliyehisi kichefuchefu baada ya kukaa kando yangu kisha akaenda nje kutapika. Si kupenda kwangu. Mimi hujaribu sana kukumbuka kukoga.

Mikosi iliendelea kuniandama mtawalia. Nilihudhuria kikundi chetu cha somo la saikolojia siku ya Jumamosi. Kufikia wakati huo watu wengi walikuwa wamejua mchango wangu mzuri katika utunzi wa mazingira.

Wanakikundi waliponiona nikija, walianza kujitayarisha kwa kufunika mapua yao kwa vitambaa. Haya hayakunishika mishipa kwa sababu nilikuwa nimezoea. Nilizidi kuenda na nilipofika walikuwa wakarimu na kunipa kiti, kalamu na karatasi ili niandike yote watakayoyajadili. Agizo la mwisho lilikuwa nisifungue mdomo; ninyamaze tu na kuandika. Baada ya muda mfupi wa mjadala, niligundua kila mtu alikuwa anatazama jinsi nilivyokuwa nikiandika.

Nilikuwa nikitetemeka mikono na jasho lingi lilikuwa linanitoka kwenye vidole vyangu vyeusi. Karatasi lote lilikuwa limeloa jasho.

Kule chumbani wenzangu wamenitoroka. Waliafadhalisha kuishi kama wakimbizi kuliko kuishi na mimi. Waliteta kuwa hawakuweza kupata hata lepe la usingizi kutokana na kukohoa kwangu usiku mzima. Walishuku naugua T.B: jambo lililowapa sababu ya kutorudi hata kidogo. Huo si ukweli, sikuwa na T.B. Naugua saratani ya mapafu!

Hata hivyo, nini jambo ninalojivunia? Sijawahi patwa na maradhi madogomadogo kama malaria kwa sababu mbu nao pia hawangeweza kustahimili harufu mbaya na moshi wa sigara.

Ninaenda kuzimu. Huko hakutakuwa na haja ya kununua kibiriti cha kuwasha sigara.

Si kupenda kwangu, ni shetani!!

Mark my word!

BY OGOLA MAK'OMENDA

In the wee hours of the morning, I hear a shriek from the corridor where my room is situated. So I uncomfortably turn on my bed, wondered then continued struggling with sleep. “Why can’t they just drink and finish their mess at Frakaz!” I say to myself. But how safe am I? Does sleeping on my bed makes me more mean than the philanthropists who go giving and being given everywhere within campus? How free is my mind as I turn on my bed, because one thing I am sure about is that at the break of dawn, I will see it again! So, do I hate myself, blame myself or run from myself?

Just the other day I took my friend to the dispensary late in the night, I witnessed a sight that worsened my sick friends condition and as the wise Solomon would say, I saw another evil under the sun.“Umekuja kuchukua tools!” remarks a security officer to a unanimous man, whom in the light I recognize as the mandazi cook at a chips café.

“Yes!” Replies the man emphatically. “Hapa lazima ujipange,” he proceeds, “kazi inaweza kulemea.”

I watch closely as he takes a good number of the ‘tools’ and stacks in his pocket, then a thought comes to my mind. “Tonight, a university student would allow their thighs to be ripped apart by someone who cant even give the definition of A for Apple; simply because he collected some few coins and gave them for maybe sukuma wiki and nyama quota!” Oh my God! What an absurd incidence.

But that isn’t my problem, neither is it with the tools nor the work persons. No, my problem is with the society. It has given us a wrong definition! The index of our definition or the benchmark of our reference is sex, so that the performance of anything is referenced at sex. What a menace? Lets us be candid with one another; it is me and you that make this society sedentary and therefore we define it. Therefore why does the action below the belt become a universal set and we become subsets?

My greatest worry is that no one seems to care that we have a generation to salvage, a generation threatened by inhalation from within. What remains of us? What happens when an institution of higher learning turns to be an institution of lower learning, or when common sense becomes NO-SENSE? Answer me, what happens? You mean we came here to be supplied by tools in every corner of the university! What happens when you put meat close to a dog and you don’t issue the command for the dog to eat? It will automatically eat and if the meat were poisonous, the dog will die. So is with the tools hanged everywhere, we can just eat despite the 10-10 rules, who cares! Between 10-10 is such a long time that you can eat to your fill! Come on eat!

While we lack seats to sit on during lectures, our spirits have been appeased because after all, the basic need has been given to us—the freedom to eat with a constant supply of tools. The stock will never run dry! What a fantastic investment!

Like Hama Tuma observes in his short story Who Cares For the New Millenium, no one seems to bother about the dawn of a new seed of generation which connotatively defines itself as one that eats and takes two for the road!

The choices we make today will define the life we live tomorrow, and ultimately our destination. With this trend of events, whom do you think will have the vitality and the vigor to safely anchor, for instance, the ship of Vision 2030 at the harbor of new thinking?

Lets us be like Abiyo in the short story The Refugee who disapproved Wani, Duku, and Picha, characters who thought that they would take advantage of her simply because she was a refugee. Come on, let this society not take advantage of us. Let it not think that we are so desperate for tools, there is more than tools for us.

Before you open your books to be written on by every pencil, remember an exam is soon coming, where you shall have sharpened your pencil till it will be no more and the books will be filled up, and there is no exchange!

As the mighty Achebe observes, ‘Flies are buried with corpses because they lack someone to advise them.’

PASSAMU HOSTS KASNEB DAY

BY NYAMWEYA BW'OMARI

Professional Accountants and Secretaries Students Association-Moi University on Saturday hosted KASNEB (Kenya Accountants and Secretaries Education Board) officials at the Students’ Centre in its first interactive session this semester. Led by KASNEB’s Chief Internal Auditor Ms Peris Mwangi, the 4 member team encouraged students to take extra courses other than their degree courses as this will make them unique in the job market.

Speaking during the meeting, Peris insisted on students to take a professional course (Accounts, Secretariat Courses etc) and an academic one (Bachelors’ Degrees). She also agitated for diversity saying that the current world appreciates and embraces diverse minds. Peris was accompanied by Mr. Omollo and Ms Naomi Machira from the Examination Department at KASNEB.

PASSAMU is an association registered with the Dean of Students offering CPA (Certified Public Accountants) classes for Moi University students and has an Audit Department which audits books of accounts of other Clubs and Associations within

Moi University-Main Campus.

More than 100 students attended the session which was held at the Conference Room in the Students’ Centre.

The interactive session, dubbed KASNEB Day, was organised by Moi University’s PASSAMU under the leadership of Kelvin Macharia who is its Chairperson. Other officials of the club include Jackline Rono (Vice Chairperson), Isaac Ngumo (Secretary General), Dan Mbogo (Finance Director) and Fridah Kerubo (Training Director

Celebrating the lives of our two heroines

by SHADRACK KIRONG

It is true that death don’t choose, because if it would it , all of us would not have allowed it to claim anyone’s live. The demise of the late Prof. Wangari Maathai and late Dr. Margaret Ogolla two weeks ago, has indeed robbed this country of their great heroines. Two unrelenting Kenyan women so to speak, that would leave no stone unturned in ensuring they romp home victory in their endeavors for the wellbeing of the Nation.

Dr. Ogolla is famously known for her book “The River and the Source” which was an examinable novel in KCSE (1999-2004) and won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers Prizes. In her story she depicts a true Kenya family, and some strong female characters. The story follows four generations of Kenyan Women in a rapidly changing country and society. In her sequel book, “I Swear by Apollo” she examines issues of medical ethics and authentic identity. Issues she adequately addressed with a lot of transparency and passion.

The Prolific writer is also remembered for service as medic in Kenyatta National Hospital and as Advisor to Kenya Bishops on issues of family and health. The SOS HIV/AIDS clinic April (2004-05), a clinic for people living with Aids (PLWAs), is said to have been founded through her own efforts. She is also the author of the book ‘’Unbowed’’ and ‘’ Place of Destiny’’ which talks of a woman dying of cancer.

Late Prof. Wangari Maathai, who became the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, has indeed left a legacy in this country. Her recognition however, did not come without eliciting controversy, especially in past the government. Maathai was a woman so popular with the ruling elite, her Green Belt Movement, which she started as an initiative to plant trees in forested Kenya, which was being encroached for human economic activities, has indeed yielded fruits.

On the political arena she was never oblivious and aloof of any political injustice. She started her political mission when she joined National Council of Women (NCW), organization devoted to bettering the status of African women. Many things can said about Maathai, but it is worth mentioning that it was through her Green Belt Movement and her acumen, in 2003 that saw the establishment of a programme, Women for Change (WFC), aimed at empowering Women, especially the young girls, new sense empowerment through education.

It is often said, it doesn’t matter how long you live, but what kind of legacy you live behind. Our two befallen Heroines have undoubtedly left a legacy in this country for these generation and generation to come. The new inroads of women in our today’s Kenyan politics, gender equity among others, owes it is support from these great women, who demonstrated that they were very ready to stand with all their courage, against all odds to fulfill not their dreams, but the dreams of all Kenyans.

While Prof. Maathai have been styled as “The Environmentalist” and Dr. Ogolla as “The Woman of all Seasons”, they will and will go down into our anal of History as our great Heroines.

QUOTE ‘’ When you think of all the conflicts we have, whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global, these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition’’

When I go to campus…

BY MERCY TRECY NG'ANG'A

I truly hope that my family never comes to see these confessions. Not for anything else but for sanity purpose and to save them from the disappointment they will be entitled to. That of a ‘good’ girl turning to a ‘bad’ girl!

I don’t disagree that there are people who are able to uphold their principles in campus but you must agree with me that not many are able to live by them. Campus simply transforms most people in a worse dimension than ‘Chris Brown’ can transform. It is such a transformation that I’m seated here expressing about.

I look at ladies or should I talk of girls? Campus has transformed some into young mothers. Others have embraced fashion more than even the beauty queens on magazines’ covers. Skirts are no longer some form of decency as sometimes it is better off for trousers or minis’…my mother calls them handkerchiefs whenever we come across someone with such in town . I just pray that fate does not catch up with me one of these days and open up reality to the face of the world to laugh at me! And if by mistake they get to see this, I hope they will assume it is someone with a similar name as to mine…

Men have not also been lucky enough to run from the transformation. Some used to quench their thirst only with soft drinks (obeying their thirst!) but now are the ‘brown bottle’ pros. That reminds me of a friend who has experienced such transformation. His is a result of peer pressure which he has apparently not been so lucky to elope from. The last time I checked on him, he had a hangover from an all-night-long drinking spree. The funny bit is where he had to be lifted up in order to be able to cross over a bump! Am not allowed to fill my page with laughter so will leave it to you to do me the favour.

Tight sagging trousers are a common dress code to some who before campus had never even in their wildest of dreams fathomed of such a scenario. ‘Roasted’ hair as my communication and culture lecturer calls it is also a style they have come to embrace.

Just where had I reached? Had been interrupted by someone checking whether he could do my nails! Which reminds me, that is a part of my transformation. I now spend hours seated down to have the colour of my nails changed to the western fashions. But get me right, I only do it when in campus because if I went that way home, my mother would suffer a heart attack if not a comma. She believes in the Old Testament where rules are to keep natural! She believes that only Queen Jezebel could do such wicked things to her body which reminds me of a piercing incident but let that be a story for another day my dears.

Back to my story, When last did you attend a church service? Do not follow my example on this because it is not something I am proud of. To be truthful, it is something I wish wouldn’t have had to talk about. It is not that am not a believer but just that I became like the maidens who slept while waiting for the groom. I don’t know why but the only time that sleep seems to overpower me is on Sundays! If my granny was around, she would tell me, “Shidwe” which she believes is correct to mean ‘Ishindwe’. My Bible is something else that has become a forgotten case. Yet it was meant to be a daily inspiration! But writing this has helped more than you can imagine because tonight I will look for it and retrace my steps.

I just hope that this will not open up more closed wounds which are better off left to heal. But I’m left with no option than to stand their pain as I review my wishes of..When I go to campus…

This should help you know of your importance to my life if you were not aware of it. The fact that I can withstand this pain just to share with you my wishes as… THE DREAMER!

You might agree with Kanye West when he says in the song ‘Knock you down’ that get up when you are knocked down. I truly believe deep within me that it is my time to get up. Or don’t you agree with me?