Graduation in the Offing

There are two things that most graduands will not tell you: the grade they got and the job they are currently doing. No, this things do not augur well with their ego. Everything they say is ever rosy. Painted in a color too bright to be viewed with the naked eye. They will tell you how early they woke, the stoicism they carried along and most probably the odds they defied to be who they are. They will tell you of the tough units they did, the cool guys they hanged out with and the sadistic lecturers they had to endure. Listening to them or reading their stories on Facebook, you will think that you are brushing shoulders with the most macho guys ever. You see them as the most superbly matured, purely refined, truly refreshing people that the old mother earth could ever have. They are the ‘it’ guys; geeks, nerds, the best thing that their universities discovered. But their university grades never get a mention.  Not especially when they got a grade below a ‘Second Upper Division’.

I am one of those niggers. The kind who causes mayhem on FB  throwing tantrums all round but have no very good grade to show for it. When the head of the Statistical Department was handing my results to me, he looked at me directly in the eye and then re-looked at my transcript. He was dismayed. He thought that I was one of the brilliant students in class. Those who were the shit. Oops, I burst his bubble; the grade was nothing commensurate with my height, nothing that could equal my big eyes. The grade was disturbingly small. Not too small, but small. You know what I mean? 

Maybe I should give you a brief description of this guy. He is an old professor. The kind who have a long grey beard and hair that seems to defy the straightening of a comb. His teeth are brown, like mine. It seems that he has coated them with gold. But no, it is excess fluorine. So he must be from Central? Yes, you guessed right. He is from Nyandarua. He wears spectacles, not as an eye aid but as a sign of his greatness; a sign of his intellectual complexity. Anyway, I had disappointed him. So he got angry and blurted out. 

“Squirrel, so this is the best you could make, mmh? Why do you want to shame the Statistical Department?”

I kept mum. 

You never talk when a big old man like the Professor talks. You keep mum and wait for him to split you with words lest he spits you from his office. 

“Okay, for this I will give you a curse. You will never travel in an airplane’s First class compartment. You will not eat the first fruits of any shamba. You will get Second Class things. The leftovers. The rejects” 

“But Sir, I got an Honours. That is what my papers show,” I defended myself. [Men defend themselves.]

“ Honours kitu gani? It also shows that it is just Second. Second from last. Could you not get a First Class Honours.”

“But Sir, the Bible says that when one goes to a party, they should not sit on the first chairs. That we should just sit in the second. Maybe someone will notice us and take us to the front. The First Class chairs.”

“Shut up Squirrel. I do not want you to play squirrel tricks on me. That is the Bible and this is Statistics. This meeting is dismissed!” He said banging the table in front of him. Anger had really welled up on him. You could tell that from the green veins on his wrinkled face.

I was about to tell him that I would still make it in life with my Second Class Honours when I thought better of it. You know, you never bandy words with old men? They may go to Uhuru park dressed in old rags and break nine gourds to have you completely impounded; written off beyond repair.

So I kept mum and thought twice about it.

Anyway to hell with this old man and his tasty grades. I will have to graduate. On 29^th August, 2014. But before Friday comes, I would like to thank the following troupe of people:

Grandfather Google

Old Mutual is just a toddler to him

Half of the grade I got is yours. Fully yours. You were the most resourceful and trustworthy person I ever interacted with in my campus days. Everytime I had a problem in finding x’s and y’s from other unknowns, you came in. You saved the day. Grandfather Google, what can I repay you for the wisdom, the brilliance that you were so kind to offer to a soul like me?

Uncle HELB

Have you ever had a reliable uncle? One who is sooo generous that it hurts? One who would rather sleep on a hungry stomach rather than see you go broke? That is Uncle HELB for you. He is based in Anniversary Towers where he doles out cash to needy students. His generosity never abates nor does it run dry. It runs throughout Nairobi, KU, Maseno, Egerton and all those other universities in Kenya [I do not want to call them kindergartens. I may be lynched alive].

I just hope that he reads this. That he sees this post. Uncle HELB, what a help you were. As one of the students that you supported, I give you my thanks. I am so grateful uncle. You are a man and a half. 

I just hope that this few lines that I have written thanking you will flatter you. That they will make you so happy that you will spare me from paying back that four-year loan you lent me.

AUNT MPESA

she sits on that chair

There was a time I asked a friend of mine how he would describe Mpesa. He described her as promising. I shook my head at his intellectual dwarfism. How could he describe Aunt Mpesa that way! Mpesa is one of those aunts that you have to spend a whole day on the dictionary looking for an adjective to describe her. Promising is not enough. You describe Mpesa as promising only if your English teacher died before he finished the syllabus. Before he reached the bit where you were supposed to be awed by complexity of adjectives.

Aunt Mpesa, you are such a sweet and reliable relative. You would knock on my phone during those lean days. Those rainy days when I was almost knocking up with hunger. With you, I could leave my heart with you, go to Mombasa and get back to Nairobi and still finding the heart beating. 

That is my list of the big three. I hope they employ me to write more reviews about them. Or even to go out to campuses wearing their t-shirts to promote their brands. Thank you guys.