GRADUATION MADNESS Part 1 of 2

Bottomline: the possibility of a South Mugirango SDA church bus not making a grand entrance in main campus is close to zero

My graduation date is setting in fast, everyone including the village chief who only used to talk to me in village barazas, of course after receiving summons to appear before the village barazas for being a bad influence to school going children. The chief was worried that I was becoming an inhibiting factor to his strongman style of leadership since the moment I joined university everything changed from my dress code to my accent. I was the one who ‘controlled the game’ I determined what to wear among my peers depending on the prevailing fashion trends and which hairstyle to have in place. I was simply the SI unit of everything among them considering most of them never managed to go beyond form four, academically.

I started wearing jeans trousers which I only used to see during December holidays when my cousins who stayed in the big city came upcountry for the festive season and having hairstyles which were heavily influenced by celebrities; my most memorable hairstyle was the Balo Mohawk which is or was the default hairstyle of former Manchester City and Italian talisman Mario Balotelli. The first time I went home for long holiday with this hairstyle wearing rugged jeans I brought all operations in our local market to as a standstill. Women started calling each other, talking in hush tones “Injwo! Injwo morore! Ense yaerire!” which when translated to English “come see the world is ending” a clear sign of how people were reserved in this part of the world.

My village mates might carry me shoulder high

Being one of the few people from my village in South Mugirango to ever set foot in a university, a public university on that matter is no joke. I became the first person in the village to use a smartphone, an ‘Ideos’ which was our default phone at that time when joining campus, when Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) was the Higher Education Loans Board not the shadow body it is today courtesy of the delays witnessed. Those days when you find Ksh 50,000/= in your account. When receiving my first disbursement I thought I could buy a car considering I had never laid my hands on such an amount of money in my lifetime.

My biggest headache is the list of people who have already booked their slots in my graduation ceremony from relatives to friend of friends of relatives. Did I forget to mention that my mother is in more than twenty merry go rounds ‘Chamas’ each having an average of twenty different members with each member wanting to be in attendance hence the possibility of a South Mugirango SDA church bus not making a grand entrance in main campus is close to zero. Mong’are and his crew of Alcohol Response Unit (ARU) will definitely not miss the event as it is the only avenue for my father to buy them free flowing liquor to celebrate the occassion.

To be continued………………………………………………………