POST HIGHSCHOOL

When I was still in highschool, I wanted to be done with that place as fast as I could. Maybe had there been a provision of skipping a form or two, I would not have thought twice about grabbing the damn chance. I wanted to get out of that place which I always considered shitty. I wanted to be done with the strict timelines. I wanted to be free; free from the imposing teachers, the time confines, the boring afternoon classes, the substandard meals...free from everything.
I fancied the lifestyles of those who had come before me. The bushy hairs they kept, the long nails; with no police-teacher restricting me to some standards I considered overwhelmingly unnecessary. I wanted to be the village cock who crows with nothing to worry about. Damn right yeah, everybody wanted that. A life with no restrictions.

Well, the national exams came. That was my very last hurdle to becoming the free man I had always dreamt of. I didn’t want to fail. No no no...My parents didn’t want me to fail. My peeps in school didn’t want me to fail. I didn’t know what their stake would be in my success but nonetheless, they wanted me to pass. I could have chosen to fail, not that I wanted to, but the trek had been tough. I could hardly espy myself in that success mood. All happy and frenzied with my results. I passed though. I even got an A in Chemistry. No doubt Madam Sumukwo is proud wherever she is. That teacher though. Chemistry was not exactly my best of subjects in highschool. We struggled. (This is where the laugh emojis come in.)
My results came with rounded accolades from village mates. Probably I was the only dude with an A in my village. ‘Handshakes za Uhunye’, if you know what that means, were the month’s order. That was long ago in December. When people’s pockets were full. When every dude you came across gives you a handshake telling you, “Shika hii uanzie maisha ya medicine.” They all wanted me to study medicine. Mental emancipation was what they were in need of.

January came. My birthmonth. The month when locusts decide to come from wherever they were in aestivation and ravage crops in a better part of Kenya. They haven’t come to Kisii at least. (At the moment). The month when Equity people stood me up and said there’s no job for me. (By the way that broke me. How the fuck do they not have a job for me? Anyway...Itabidi nimezoea.) The month when the sun scorches my motherland like it wants a Sahara down here.

Post-highschool is not so enthusing after all. Boredom galore. You miss the highschool stories. The highschool vibe. You didn’t like it back then but now you realize how fun it was. You miss skipping showers...these days I bathe daily. You miss sleeping in class,skiving the boring biology lessons and talks. There’s a lot to conjure. The idleness at home ravages you up slow by slow. Eight months of the same acerbic boredom ahead. 

Other peeps are in computer classes or driving lessons or better still others are in Strathmore short courses blasting their fun out there. I’m held up in my small village in the heart of Gusii tending to nothing particularly. My old man could have enrolled me in Strath but no...he doesn’t have the will to waste money on an International Relations course which he deems as unimportant as the driving lessons hitherto. Old man wants me to be an engineer; telling me stories of how the economy is ruined and of the prevailing job deficiency each night when we watch the 9 o’clock news. He tells me also of how he hopes the government shift from the old guard to the young buds will resurge the economy. How jobs will be in plenty, how the many dilapidated roads will require mending, how I will have such a bounty for my choice...Many things he tells me.
‘Maybe there’s something fun in this.’ You hope. You believe. You trust. Or maybe there’s a way out.

@oiraqaleb esq.