In this economy that seems to be moving on neutral gear, comrades are between a rock and a hard place. Campo is no longer that eutopia with boundless freedom and full of babes with pretty foreheads. It is turning into a miserable hell where comrades are struggling to break free from the clutch of adulting. Kang’ethe, my buddy who is wasting away in another local university texted me the other day in distress.
He explained how last week, he was seated in a boring linguistics class when he noticed a girl stealing glances. It was at around 2pm and the lecture hall was a furnace due to the sweltering heat and humidity. Kang’ethe was trying hard to concentrate even as the girl’s side eyes kept distracting him. To avoid looking at her too much, he doodled on his book and chewed nervously on the tip of his pen. For breakfast, he had taken hot black tea and crusted African cake (read yesterday’s ugali), and now, he was assaulted by pangs of hunger. He stifled a yawn as the other classmates jotted down brief notes.
The more the lecturer spoke, the harder he curled his toes in his sole-less shoes. The teacher’s boring voice allowed his mind to wander, and soon he was daydreaming. He saw a vision of himself setting ablaze his academic certificates. To him, the papers didn’t matter as his desire had always been to study international relations and diplomacy, but his guardians insisted on linguistics and literature. He was startled from the reverie by loud laughter, and the lecturer’s voice advising the class to prepare for a Continuous Assessment Test (CAT) the following week. Confusion! He turned to the girl who was side eyeing him the entire lecture.
“Why were you making those squealing sounds?” Anita blurted before Kang’ethe could utter a word. “I was just humming a chorus of my favourite song,” he answered. Anita had no clue that although he looked as fat as a bag of cement, Kang’ethe had painstakingly endured the two-hour lecture on an empty stomach. They walked out of the lecture hall, Anita bringing him up to speed with the contents of the course. But, all the guy could think about was how attractive her dress was.
While on the walk, Kang’ethe decided to shoot his shot. His strategy was to entice her by buying her a Smocha snack (a sandwich combo of chapati and smokie) – a campus favourite. He had not a coin on him, but he came up with the brilliant idea of using his Sh73 fuliza balance to treat his new crush. He bought her the Smocha while pretending that all was OK, then he escorted the smiling and contented Anita to the hostels. After that, he marched to the campus cafeteria with the remaining Sh8 fuliza balance.
As he sat at his table, he remembered how much he had earlier looked forward to demolishing a hilly meal of rice and beans worth Sh15, but could now only raise less than half that amount. Upon calling his friends for help with the Sh8 balance, he was met only with disappointment. The friends had no money! Was he going to skip lunch and supper simply because he had used his last Sh50 to impress a girl? He went into the Mess, lined up and when his turn came, he offered to wash the huge boilers in exchange for a meal. It was his lucky day, comrades. Kang’ethe ended up getting a job as a dishwasher, and free meals till end semester!
