DO THE VILLAGERS STILL COUNT ON ME?

By Remington Miheso

When the people of my village congregated to offer prayers for me before coming to the university two years ago, they never visualized what they were subjecting their ‘very holy’ and ‘innocent' kid to. One of them even had the guts to tell me, “You will sure love where you are going, huko kuna kila kitu enda usome uje utufunze sisi”.

I can’t blame him for one reason: despite being the headmaster of our village school, the farthest he had travelled was to our neighbouring village about three kilometres away. He had gone to find a wife for me, their ‘innocent’ boy who had never spoken to a lady, leave alone touched them. They offered to hire vans to ferry those willing to escort me to school, a school where after crachu-eting, I would be able to solve all problems in the village, including treating cattle and advising youths.

These are the same youths who had decided to venture into business and do those things that are done by their parents. (Nowadays I am told it’s barter trade where you get a laptop after giving birth). I wished they could amass the money used to hire those vans and give it to me. The 'mama mbogas' of Moi High School would have known who I am. What was the essence of a whole village travelling to this school? Kwani nasomea degree tatu?

All this was in spite of the fact that I wasn’t the only one in university from that village. The others though, after graduating had decided that they would become heroes in drinking chang’aa. That’s the reason why the whole village had to ask The Almighty not to let me do the same. To them, I would be a role model to the young who had the ambitions of studying in this university, a place where all freedom is guaranteed, even the freedom to walk naked and sleep in hostel J.

It has been two years since this happened and I am a completely different person. Maybe I should say I have transformed but my friend Kinyua will argue that it is not transformation. I am sure he will say its degradation. That’s why I won’t seek his opinion on this. He will also start teaching me how to pronounce transformation and degradation, a class I skipped in primary school when our English teacher decided that the cane was more audible than his mouth.

I am sure those villagers who prayed for me would faint if they saw what I have become nowadays. My father will opt to go stay in Mars if he hears that my hostel is next to hostel J and that pirating is a just but a rule which can be broken any time. My mum will have a heart attack in the event that she discovers that in my second year, I stayed in the multi-purpose hostel H, where kids are manufactured. I am told it’s the only hostel with named floors, the maternity floor and the chips café floor among others. I wonder why they don’t name them after people like me.

I won’t invite the villagers to my graduation. Although I am sure they won’t understand the difference between a first class and a second class lower division, I don’t want to take chances. Why should I risk? Who knows, maybe someone has schooled them on the same!

I also don’t want them see how my lady friends wear torn or see-but-don’t-touch clothes. They would turn my graduation ceremony into a prayer session with some cursing the day they hired vans to escort me here. They would even decide that I should abandon the degree and go back to the village to teach the kids how to escape night runners and how to read books but not pass so as never to step foot in the university. But I think I have to visit them before my graduation, I surely will.


The writer is a 3rd Year journalism student and the current managing editor of The 3rd Eye.