Students at the co-operative college of Kenya
It’s the beginning of a new semester in some public universities around the country. New and continuing students stream in large numbers to either begin another step (maybe the last of their 8.4.4) while others are almost getting done. Some in their third or fourth years in campus. Hustling here and there while balancing it with the widely spaced lectures. In a nutshell, school is officially in session for these universities. However, new students just amaze!
Most new girls think campus is all about the dress code. The skimpier the better. Some believe they are being ushered into a model agency where they will be expected to strut on the runway. Girls are weighed down by large handbags (Studies should be conducted on their psychological importance and what motivates girls to have them anyway). The latest Android handset here with long earphones plugged to the ears. Welcome to the university pretty one. Oh, and I forget, the outsized earrings that accentuate the equally sized ‘African’ bangles that boisterously jingle into lecture halls after class has commenced. The incessant tip-tap-tock of the their high-heeled shoes that are supposed to create a ‘wow’ effect [read distraction] as a lecturer explains that complex theory that he/she luckily forewarns you will come in the next CAT. Fellow classmates are meant to lift their heads as the freshly ‘minted’ beauty catwalks momentarily to a seat behind. Mother of Jesus; this is not a goddamn modeling agency of some sort. Class time is class time. That is unquestionable. If one harbors the talent aforementioned, right channels are there. Notice boards do the talking, don’t they?
That’s girls. But boys I think are the worst. Our side of the divide. They think as American icon Nas raps in the song ‘I Can’ “… life’s all about smokin weed and ice.†Yes, there is the species that comes to school with the misinformed perception, nay, warped belief, that campus is all substance abuse – hooch every weekend- rolling joints and giving yourself lung cancer to fit in. No. I am no moralist or a church hireling sent in the midst of new students to bring their still ‘normal state of disorder’ to a certain normalcy but some popular beliefs are not funny at all. Sex is another gigantic distress that afflicts boys in their entire years in campus. Ask my boy Mesh. Some of your gang members pressurize you to ‘leave a mark.’ And that convoluted argument that it ‘must happen’ between you and any random chic is again a misstep that troubles many a night of some new students. God help us ALL.