WHY I’D SAY NO TO A CAMPUS CHICK

A little girl born in one of the rural corners of Kenya, goes to a local primary school and works hard to secure a post in a provincial school, gets a B plain and the university placement board seals her fate with a Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management. The day she had always awaited finally comes and she leaves hand in hand with her mother since the father either died or is utterly irresponsible. They walk in hand in hand and she endures the sun, the stench of sweat and foul mouths to make sure she is registered. The mother gives her a mouthful of advice and chunks off a big part of her savings and with tears in her eyes watches her walk off, alone and about to face the world. She feels lost, homesick and confused, doesn’t know her way around university and has roommates who also suffer the same treatment. They become best of friends and walk in a cluster for the first week before the lucky ones find their ‘better halves’ and wander off the pack. Classes start two weeks later and she sits through her first class, writing everything including the lecturers name and age, now convinced that she was in campus. She doesn’t want to lose her focus so keeps off boys for a while but the lecturer (who happens to be a doctor) tells them to get into groups and do a take-away assignment. They are supposed to be ten but some of them are too busy loving to focus so only four of them do the assignment. Boys try to hit on her but she brushes them off and they leave to try the easier to bed options. She feels like a queen back in the villages when she goes home during the holiday keeping off the village boys, ignoring that boy whom she had liked but had not made it to campus and now wasn’t her class. Schools re-open and she realizes that almost all the ladies had boyfriends, some in the same class some in the other years and she falls for one. It is blissful and he also happens to be bright but being well brought up, she know pre-mature sex isn’t for her and when he gets tired  and wanders off, he finds a better one. The semester breezes by and she realizes that she doesn’t have to attend all classes in campus and one could also cram when exams are around the corner, rather jot some ‘mwakenya’ and walk into the exam room. Second year comes calling and she realizes that the boys were no longer involved with them since they had focused on the incoming students. She is holed into one of the dingy hostels with three other girls, one an avid smoker, another a sworn drunkard and the other a party animal. Since she doesn’t have people who care for her, she looks up to the new troupe for friendship. This is partly due to their jibes and the fact that she wanted to savour some of her freedom. Step by step things change and books take a backstage. Two puffs, two sips and she can now down a whole sheesha bottle herself. She becomes a smoker then later a stoner and realises that she needs money to fund her habits. She starts forming imaginary trips and activity and fleeces her mother to her last coin. When she can no longer sustain her, she is introduced to an old man with money maybe through online platforms or one of her ‘affluent’ friends and puff, her virginity is gone to the dogs. The experience isn’t worth it but the money is. She slides deeper and deeper and can now do it with three men a day and she buys herself a couch, twenty-one inch flat screen TV and a bed of indecipherable wood. She becomes bolder by day and now does it without a condom. She finds another boyfriend in campus to be secure and now her time shifts between her sources of income and the small parasite seeking warmth. It is about this time that she misses her menses and it is back to the drawing board. She is two month pregnant and definitely not ready so she goes to one of the recommended quacks and the problem is solved. Five months later, she procures her second. She struggles with her academics and she barely scrapes by now. She is pregnant again and this time she has to defer her studies to give birth. She leaves the child with the mother and comes back to pick up from where she left off. She realizes that she is not attractive enough and her good friend suggest a ‘documents lift’ and so she has her breasts and butt enhanced. She goes further and bleaches her face then it is back to her philandering ways. She graduates at twenty three and due to her connection, one of her ‘sponsors’ secures her a form of employment and she is now on her own. One year later, her hormones tell her that it is time to get married. She sheds off the short dress and takes in Kitenge, gets rid of her make-up and goes natural; and instead of the club now goes to vigils. She regrets her two abortions, her bottles of alcohol, the smoke in her lungs and even the sexual philanthropy and prays to God to give her someone good, possibly responsible and God-fearing. The campus boyfriends are too busy making their lives to bother about her and so she fasts and prays, joins women leagues and crosses her fingers whenever a man passes.

This is the average campus chick that I am expected to spend forever with AND GET MANY CHILDREN. *SIGH*