Getting knocked up the campus way

By  Bill Odunga

I always get tickled by the varied reactions of comrades whenever a girl in campus walks by, heavily laden with a baby growing steadily inside her protruding belly.

There are those who snicker, as if a condom burst is this guy that lives in ocha that has not the faintest idea of your address in the city. Some feel sorry for her, assuming it was an unfortunate accident, whose consequences she’s forced to grapple with.

Others whisper as she heaves past them, oiling their gossip with stories of how she has been sleeping around recklessly.

There are others who may know who the father of the child is, but the never stops them branding the child a bastard. Those of faith talk of how a revival meeting to condemn the spirit of debauchery has become long overdue. In short, a campus pregnancy is a festival of ridicule.

Innocence

Flashback, say, nine months ago: This girl (let’s call her Sheila) is probably a First Year virgin. She does not drink or smoke. Her dresses are ankle long. No pants or make-up. Her innocence is that of any typical first year.

Then campus happens. She meets a Fourth Year guy (Martin) in the heat of ‘the gold rush’ and becomes smitten by the fact that an older guy finds her attractive. A few compliments later, she is in his lair, defying all the boundaries that her mother had set. The first night, Martin is a gentleman, but the subsequent nights, she loses her cherry. Alcohol and poor judgement is a recipe that Martin has perfected over the years, and poor Sheila is no different.

Sheila becomes absorbed in the reverie of campus nightlife. Her naivety is Martin’s strongest card and so she spends more time in his bed than her own room. She moves in after three weeks. What she fails to understand is that the love that Martin confesses is just an excuse he uses to get laid.

Then one day, he brings up this issue about how he wants them to do it fry.

“If you truly love me, you will let me do it without a CD,” he implores.

In order to save their relationship, she accepts. Perhaps, she loves it and him too. And then it becomes routine.

One month down the line, she faints in class. The school nurse tells her she is going to be sick for the next nine months. Devastated, she heads back to Martin’s room, whimpering;

“Baby, we need to talk,” she begins amidst sobs. Just then she realises that the weka condom mpangoni wasn’t just for her mother.

Sadly, once a cow has been milked, there is no way of squeezing the cream up its udders.