How campo changes ‘angels’, ‘saints’ into crooks

I would like to state at the start of this week’s column, that I deeply respect the memory of those campus students who have disappeared or been promoted to glory under mysterious circumstances.

That said, let’s talk matters Mercy Keino. When her story first came out, I was running some campus rag called Campus Chronicles.

I was the Managing Editor. A lofty title if you ask me, given the kind of job that I used to do.

I have pored through different accounts of this story, and even watched Tony Mochama’s play. And the other night, Dennis Onsarigo aired another account of what transpired on his show, Case Files.

While watching Onsarigo’s account, I heard Mercy Keino’s father say that he could not believe that his daughter drank alcohol. He could not believe that his daughter, who he raised to be a saint, would even contemplate going to a night club. I winced.

Dressed skimpily

I felt sorry for him. I wanted to tell him a story about this lady I met in first year. Let’s call her Shiko. You see, in first year, UoN Law students live with the Business Studies folk at the Lower Kabete campus.

Shiko was a fellow first year student studying B Com. She was a mkorino, and her skirt was always long and never lacked mafiriri (pleats).

A few months ago, I met Shiko in the most unlikely of places: Club RnB. Her skirt was not long, it did not sweep the floor like it used to. It was riding up her brightly lit yellow thighs, and it did not have mafiriri at all. Lets just say she was dressed skimpily.

She was holding a bottle of Guinness and as is the norm for girls at Club RnB, she was bending over towards some bloke’s crotch. I did not even recognise her until someone else pointed her out to me.

What is my point here? Campus changes people. We walk into those gates with innocence and naivety stamped on our foreheads, only to meet other people who will change us.

What most parents don’t know is that their children don’t remain the angels and saints that they send to campus. University is where people become immoral, lose their virginity and become thugs and crooks etc.

getting wasted

Change is a good thing. Clubbing is a good thing in my books.

Getting wasted, vomiting on the pavement, one night stands in the alley or parking lot, and the occasional club fight are kawaida campus experiences that we will live to tell someday when we are old and grey.

Maybe Keino’s father will disagree, but personally, I am not exactly a man of the cloth.

So anything goes for me. And you know what? Most of our folks did the same things while in campus.

The exuberance of youth leaves very little room for boredom. But none of it will ever justify what happened to Mercy Keino.