WHEN MY FAMILY CAME VISITING

By Lau Lawi

The other day my family dropped by to check on my progress in this institution of higher learning. I never expected them to be fascinated by this institution as they were by the end of the day. My mum, dad, older and younger brothers were accompanied by my junior sister.

The first place we visited was the mighty MTL or Maggie as we call her nowadays. They were awed by the gigantic structure but what demoralized my father’s reading culture was lack of enough books. My older brother was all giggles as he read out some graffiti on the reading tables. He asked me whether a whole university student can write such nonsense on a reading table and I couldn’t give him a satisfactory answer.


We left MTL and headed to our school. I knew we had the best department but shock laid in wait for me. My parents had a healthy chat with the lecturers but the real shock was in the academics office. They asked for my transcripts and to their astonishment only five out of the fifteen courses were available. They were told that there was a rodent in that office called missing marks that nibbles at students’ transcripts.

I was very ashamed that I evacuated them with immediate effect from the academic premises towards the hostels. In the hostels my younger brother couldn’t understand why I said it was the male hostel yet he was just brushing shoulders with feminine curvaceous bodies. I lied to him that they were coming to print their assignments only for one to appear from my immediate neighbour with a towel and a bucket full of water headed to the showers.

As we walked along the academic streets, my young sister couldn’t understand why the ladies wore some ‘fishing nets’. I explained to her that they are called tights. What she couldn’t grasp is that they wore long t-shirts with them. She couldn’t understand that ‘fashion’.

As we toured around the hostels, we met students carrying mattresses. I informed them that the university could no longer accommodate the students due to ‘double intake’ hence they were signing out and they were going home ‘till further notice’.

My brother could not balance himself precariously on the toilet bowl. The toilets were ‘so clean’ that he couldn’t sit on the bowl. To add pain to his aching tendons is that the toilet was not flushable. When he tried to wash his hands, there was no water flowing from the taps.

When they were leaving, we met a few tipsy comrades along the academic highway. My family couldn’t understand how ‘learned members’ of the society could be draining their worthy brains in alcohol. The way they zigzagged across the academic highway intrigued my dad to the extent that he contemplated transferring me to our village polytechnic.

I hope that when your family members come calling, they will have a different story to tell.

The writer is the chairperson of the 3rd Eye.