MAIN
FEATURE
Campus
Intrigues
By
Musyoka Ngui
Housing:
Beyond Comfortable Cribs.
This is a spectator observation. The kind that you get
from a stranger. The frank, blunt and unapologetic comment that lays bare the
obvious stuff that you see and think “so what?” You ignore or say it’s mundane.
As a sophomore, I asked myself what I could write home
about if I was asked to sum up college housing in a paragraph. I guess a paragraph
is too blocky to fill. May be a one-liner. Let me try. And don’t laugh.
In September 2011 I met conmen masquerading as
landlords. Since the resident hostels
were full and crowded I was persuaded to register as a non-resident student far
away. It was not exactly comfortable. It was a place to lay my head on and wish
that gods will visit me with sound sleep to help me forget the stress of being without
a decent hostel.
I had to fork
out some more cash for transport as my house was eight kilometers away from
campus. It was an inconvenient baptism with fire. At times I could easily pass
as Kizza Besigye walking to work in protest of M7 regime complete with peppered
anger. The first semester of freshman is always an experimental one and mine
was no different.
All my campus life I’d never known the trappings of
resident dwelling. I rued the day JAB consigned my fate to a second choice
rural college. We looked like pilgrims in Mecca. Everything was rush, adrenalin
and hot blood. Ironically I came to love this university as I have seen it grow
and successfully proved to me that in fact it is home away from home; serene
surroundings and scenic sights of Mt. Kenya staring at young souls from over 5000
feet above the sea level and wondering what would become of their future now
that their destiny lay in the hands of the new university.
There are randy roommates you have to contend with and
accommodate them however small the crib is. You are bound to suffer exile. The type
of blink-speed decision that a roommate calls upon the sensible side of a
fellow comrade. It starts this way. “Look, man, I have my chic coming over and
would like to use this house for the two of us. If you don’t mind you can go
and sleep over at akina Joni then
come over the weekend. Err.. I mean Monday morning”. Exiles normally happen on
Fridays. The exile is given suspension notice any day between Monday and
Thursday.
The not-so-lucky ones have to bear with the flames of
jealousy as the pair cuddles and kisses right under their noses. Then the span
of concentration hits zero mark and you say that the next day’s CAT can as well
go to hell. After all it is just an exam and no guarantee is there for success.
Then you pack your books neatly and pretend to go to the gents only to emerge
the following day with a dark face. It is such a miserable life for the single
and broke. Imagine a world where the type of bonding is pairing and you are that lone ranger that has never
had the privilege to escort a girl let alone exiling a fellow comrade after a
culmination of days of expenditure, hollow sweet-nothing rhetoric,
disappointment, frustration and the ultimate trophy: a lay.
Now I will let you in to my other housing home secret.
Most men live in twos. That is a guy sleeping in the same house with another
but in different bed. On the other hand, many girls sleep and live alone.
Normally there is this ego that makes a lady larger than an elephant. As a
result the bedsitter becomes too small for two adult girls to coexist minus catfights
and bitchy name-calling.
The few girls living under the same roof in pairs
suffer from Cold War. They are loudly silent or plotting how the will finish
their roommates. They are cooks who can’t eat from the same pot. Every girl is
an autonomous chef. Were utensils to speak they would tell the world’s untold
stories. They would confess that it has been a noisy dinning session. Only
plates and spoons chime. The jars and glasses only interact with the users by
lips alone. The lips are zipped silent with a scandalous cloud of jealousy
hanging above.
No girl would complement another for cooking a
delicious meal. Instead they would complain that it has no salt, has excess fat
or the chemical equation of soup and water is not balanced. They will work out
the ratio between maize flour and water and conclude that the cook wanted to
prepare ugali but changed mind midway
to prepare uji after realizing that maji yamezidi
unga.
The culinary would be left in the sink as it were,
until the next meal. The decomposing leftovers will attract houseflies and
cockroaches in equal measure. This will go on and on until someone starts
visiting the loo more than they do the class. Be sure she is “driving” and her
exhaust pipe is too impatient to wait any longer.
There is a sweet romance that everyone has sinned with
green envy. It is the reckless cohabiting. The Pap! Generation hooks up in Facebook,
meet at a coffee table and before the week end they are an item. Before you
know what hit you he has lied and laid you and gotten another catch. Then you
start saying: I hate men. Men are dogs. Men are all the same. Forgetting that
where there is a dog there is a bitch. Better still, where there is a dog pet
there is a master.
On the same breath of romance, most campus chics fear
pregnancy more than STIs. They would rather have a flesh to flesh contact and
pop a pill than sheath themselves. Caution is thrown to the wind and men close
in on this once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Then there is another class of girls. They live alone
but are “kept”. The maintenance guy comes over the weekend or when the match is
away she travels to Nairobi. All expenses paid. Such girls populate the lists
of retakes as they don’t know when the exam was done or they come to campus to
write the main tests and random CATs. They can’t afford to sit down through a
two hour lecture listening to a ranting professor or swallow their pride to ask
for clarification when the assignment is hard and handout Greek.
These girls think they are on top of the food chain.
They think because he pays for her rent he is charitable. Men’s math is simply
complex. She will give him shag, wash and iron his clothes, cook for him but
when the high sea approaches, Jymo will jump ship unhurt, leaving Eva to sink
like the Titanic. Before she reaches the bottom of the sea of depression the
damage is visible. The sorry self will cry, wet her pillow, blow her nose and
mourn. A rough audit of the whole steamy affair will reveal massive investment
of time, energy and money. The output section will show grim statistics; class
position number looking like fees balance and a looming crisis of
discontinuation. She will then go to the bathroom and take centuries to wash
the guilt but it won’t dissolve. She goes and stands in front of the mirror and
stares back at yours truly. Yours truly will have the cutest hairdo, the most
provocative cleavage and a most expensive wear. But behind the forced smile
will be a cursing silent swear that “Never again shall I be used again”. She will
jot down overambitious resolutions to quit and open a new page. But once the
dust settles she will return to the game. A finger that is used to lick honey
cannot help but uncork the lid again.
A house is the frankest department of human beings. He
can clad well before he leaves his house, he can smile outdoor but there is no
pretence when it comes to taking stock of one’s house. He will pretend that he
does not cook but indoors he bakes a mountain sweating in the brow with no
shirt. She will pretend that she does not eat much at the hotel or mess but at
a closed- door dinner she will clear plates and go for more helping.
A house is the ultimate crime scene where packs of
condoms are stacked among layers beddings of an otherwise outwardly innocent
person. Where you find dirty under wears buried under towels and the pillow the
bank of the fool.
Never gamble with your stronghold. A house is your
stronghold. Unless you are married don’t leave a man or a woman in your house
as you go wherever. They will feign not concerned but the moment you leave the
search begins. One discovery of an earring may lead a smart investigator to a
wealth of solid evidence ranging from receipts, gifts, birthday cards, photos
and even stumble upon matrimonial certificates. When s/he comes back you act
the prosecutor intimidating a hapless defendant. It is called fighting a losing
game. It is not worth the exchange. Just give up and accept that it happened
and move on.
The writer studies Bachelor of Arts Degree in
Communication and Media.
