In Campus and Can't Flush

Is it just my campus or could it be that we have guys in campus who have no clue on how to use a toilet? If this is the case, and I earnestly hope it is not, I can join the bandwagon to advocate for the overhaul of t

8-4-4 system. I haphazardly jotted the following piece for our campus publication after constant frustration and disappointment over the ill toilet etiquette within the campus lavatories. 

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Even with all my love of words there are some words I use with caution. Mind you, am not referring the curse and swear words; those I use in abundance. Am thinking of two words most comrades would identify with: intellectuals and scholars. These are words I dread and it is my opinion they should be used sparingly. In our perceived pseudo intelligence, we can pass for scholars and intellectuals but a pragmatic look at the things happening around campus depicts otherwise.

I don’t mean to be gross but kindly allow me to talk dirty, no I mean filthy. I want to talk about the act and art of shitting.  I am aware of the effect that the use of the words shit and art on the same line could have to our dear comrades in the school that identifies with the latter. They are guys who have been on the receiving end of unrelenting, caustic and seething criticism, at times justified, though mostly wrong and overtly condescending. However, it is not my intention to propagate this tired epithet; rather, I wish to question the unbecoming behavior, which I believe irritates most of you too: toilet etiquette.  We all visit the loo and there is an unwritten code of decorum we are expected to observe in those cubicles. Here in campus, the activity is taken to another level making it an art that require mastery if not perfection.

The first year is the introduction phase of how tortuous and intricate defecation can be. The bowls are ever filled, the floors always flooded the whole place is a mess. Getting accustomed to this situation is a constant headache. Surely only an inveterate moron can sit on those bowls since they are covered with excrement a few minutes after washing. This is replicated in all hostels and it should shame you if you have not flushed the toilet today after leaving your mess there.

For an institution full of the so called intellectuals, it beat me why we still have guys who lack the basic manners of using a toilet. May be that does not sound a lot but it scream of irresponsibility. If you cannot flush a toilet after taking a dump then you have a big lesson to learn from a three year old kid in a kindergarten. I bet even those who come from Nyakemincha have learnt how to use a toilet.  I used to blame lack of water and clogged toilets, but now seeing it happen in the new washrooms confirms that the problem lies with us.

It was a relief to see the completion of the external ablution block but it is unfortunate that the artists have discovered them. The sight of freshly furnished door and clear white tiles has triggered their creativity culminating in a new form of art where the paint is the excrement and their fingers are the brush. I cringe to think we have guys in campus me who forget a t.p. but remember to take a pen with them to the toilet. I also wonder how, when hanging precariously on the almost filled bowl, you still get time to write on the toilet and smear the wall with your stool. Do you do this in your home? If not, why do it here? What could you be thinking when you wipe your underside with your bare hands?

I wonder if the administration should consider introducing a compulsory course that should deal purely on how to take a dumb. Before then, let’s try and change.

Students Companions

Morality and exams hardly mix. They ought to but some virtues are hard to come by when you are under uncalled for stress. Short cuts have characterized our struggles. We are wired to be a
consequentialist lot and it’s only natural that as long as we can justify the end results of our actions it matters less how we arrive at them.

After gobbling down theories about ethics and moral behaviour, I was set to sit for exams on the same. I had done my part of the bargain as best as I could, had put my usual effort and was certain to attain my usual average grade; I was content. As usual the day before exams is leaden by the final preparation, the final touches and familiarization with elusive topics and concepts. Every student go through this phase whether they had been in the library throughout the semester and never missed the lecture or whether they realized after seeing the exam timetable that they should be sitting for a particular exam. Even those who sorely depend of the mwaks have to verify that they have updated their reference material before the big day.

So am engaged in the same hullabaloo of exam preparation but for some odd reasons I feel sleepy and can't concentrate. I know better not to stress my brain so i give it a rest it. Initially, I had anticipated taking a truce for about half an hour but even after a whole hour sleep, the theories could still not digest. Previously in similar circumstances, this restlessness would be settled by a cold shower but it would hear none of this at this day so I eventually gave in and opted to do something else. By all standards, something else involves a heated banter with my pals, an episode or two of a TV series and at times just take a walk. 

It is exam time and nearly everyone is busy. My pals are not in the same dull moods as me and they are busy with their revision. That leaves me and the TV series, making Nyambura is my only company. For some reason, my girl was the one who gave the sobriquet Nyambura to my laptop thus any private time I have with my laptop, to her, amount to cheating. Nyambura never fails or complain; she is everything I want in a lady and with a touch of a button she respond  to my commands without complaining for as long as I feed her with power and remember to vaccinate her with a dosage of anti-virus.

On many insomniac nights, Nyambura has kept me company and listened as I slowly narrated my stories. She have saved these stories and on the days when I ask her what I told her, she  never fails for she give the story just as I told it to her without even the slightest alteration. She has sang to me any song  I had wished her sing to me and above all, she has been very resourceful on the days I have run to a deadline with unfinished assignments. She has been quite useful in transforming Wikipedia pages into my “original” work and made them presentable to my lecturers. The greatest thing about Nyambura is that am aware she will never try scalding me with hot water during my sleep nor ever complain that I was caressing anyone else.

Nyambura is the focal point of my entertainment and if you ask her, she would swear that our love for each other is undying. I am very mean when it comes to her so sharing her rarely happen. On this night before exam, I am tired of listening to Nyambura as she narrates about the golden rule, categorical imperative and universalism. These have recalcitrantly refused to peck in my slumbering brain and what I want today are not theories. Even her songs don’t sound as melodic as they always have. 

I bid her a farewell, set my alarm to six in the morning so I can have ample time to revise before exam at 9 a.m. It would feel like ten minutes later when the alarm goes off with a shrill sound. Still in my slumbering stupor, I reach for the alarm and with a precision that I rarely master put it off. A few times my roommate will try to wake me all to no avail. I will open my eyes; lift my head stare at him before sinking back to the cover of my cozy blankets. It will not be until some minutes to nine when I eventually crawl out of bed, tired and stiff. Shower is out of question so I take a quick passport and change clothes before rushing to the exam room. I did not have time for breakfast though I had time to check my phone and ensure I had enough credit. Phones are the new students’ companion. They are a vital gadget to a student in an exam room for we like confirm what we give our lecturers. Exams are no longer about how much you can cram or how much you can recall; they are also about the internet speed of your phone, its battery life and how daring you can go to copy without being detected. Google has revolutionized even the way we take our exams.

I head to the exam room without revising as I wanted but with enough determination, come what may, I will not sheepishly fail the paper. I skimmed through the question and saw the need to confirm on a thing or two. I googled a fair share and am least bit bothered: there was nothing strange about this; some guys had recorded podcasts, which they were listening in the exam room. I mean someone had taken his time to read aloud nearly all his notes while recording the same with his phone. They only had to plug in their earphones and listen to hear what they had recorded. Ages from today I will be narrating on how I witnessed this revolutionary feat; that the exam was testing on our understanding of the application of ethics did not deter guys from figuring out ways of circumventing the system. 

With its ability to read pdf and word documents, Google Ideos was a phone designed for students. All one had to do was save all the notes in the phone and refer when need arises. But now with the recorded podcasts, the relevance of the exams is under threat. Why should I bother myself while I know someone is recording all the lecture materials for the next exam? I only need earphones and a copy of the recordings and I will be set to get my A, genuine or otherwise.

Go Getters

I learnt from my primary school headmaster that the first thing a man should do after establishing his financial stability is get a clandestine. It doesn’t matter whether he is married or not; a man who does not have
mpango wa kando is not a man enough. It is sort of an entrance ritual, a command for recognition of one’s financial power, the first commandment in the in the bible of conspicuous consumption, prove to your peers that you have the surplus. This is a lesson I tend to hold priceless. It is my definition of manhood and it is one that it seems most men (am not sure about those from Nyeri) have mastered.

The evidence of the same can be seen on Fridays in our campuses. You see these men with their tinted Mercedes Benz around campuses and you might think of them as good fathers who make a point of visiting their children. Only that these heavy vehicles are seen within the vicinity of girls’ hostels and not till a little after dark. They are our parents our pastors, our good neighbors and all time family friends. They are people we have come to respect in the society because they have mastered the art of deception and hypocrisy, always hiding within the torn fabric of morality.

He won’t be disappointed if you refuse his advances and you happen to be over thirty. Thirty to him is old, forty a disaster and a seventy, his age mate is as good as dead. It is easy to talk of the insidious male ineptitude but I think the reason why our current crop of males are taken to be inept is because we are very outsourcing to a point we overwhelm ourselves with the myriad of responsibility due to our greed and not so responsible behaviors. We want anything that crosses our path without considering on the implication it will have on our already filled mouths. 

They have no qualms chasing after girls the age of their granddaughters. And why should they? Their peers have Okayed it; in-fact, they demand it from them. The coy young campus girl is his taste. She knows the game and is well too obsequious and kind enough to allow him unlimited access to every single orifice in her temple; precisely what he wants. She is his price to being accepted by his peers as well as advances his perverted voyeuristic manners. 

It is a mutual existence and even when you want to paint blame, there is no finite distinction as who is to blame. To her the grandpa (or it sweetheart) is a God send ATM, a cash minting machine one she has an obligation to put in good use. For money she is willing to disconnect her moral compass, to bend the restrictions of morality. Fuck society... after all, the end justifies the means. The current competitive global world is not for the weaklings who cling to morality; it is for the go getters, the aggressive lot who are strong enough to chart their way and navigate whatever current on their path of success. 

They have given a meaning to the phrase go getters and thanks to them I can now understand it without much struggle. It can be understood that go getters also get the dicks and on the same note we should have the go givers- the lot who ensure the supply dicks demanded is met. It is as simple as that.  What fascinates ladies about wrinkled dicks is something I am yet to know. May be there is something special about the flabby experienced dicks and it won’t hurt if someone give me an insight on the same.

On the contrast, the latest happening in Nyeri have painted a picture of a man on the losing end though that is not a surprise at all. We lost it when we lost the shame to a point we van narrate the tales of our women battering us in our homes. What kind of man admits to being beaten by his wife?  How did we change from men who know what they want to bunch of sissies who run to the media every time their women glare their teeth? I don’t mean that a woman cannot scald me with hot water; anyone can be caught off guard, but how do you narrate the incidence to the media and still call yourself a man?