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I first set foot into a university in 1970 when I joined the University of Madagascar, Antananarivo.
I had just completed my Form Six at Alliance High School where I had taken three principle subjects: Literature in English, French and History.
The government of France, as part of their assistance to Kenya, sent me to Madagascar alongside James Orengo to study French
My first experience in Madagascar was quite exciting. I was shocked to see people negotiating openly with prostitutes. Apparently, prostitution was legal. Women openly carried their medical certificates as they plied their trade without a hindrance.
The second shocker came when I saw people eating frogs. You could walk into a hotel to find people biting and tearing legs and arms of a frog with a lot of lavishness.
Here I was, walking along the streets in a country where the male folk wore long shirts, not shorts. Trousers were non- existent.
Students in Madagascar received their bursary funds in cash, with other expenses catered for by the government. For us, however, life was tough, and there were only four of us from Kenya. After my diploma in French, I came back to Kenya before joining the University of Dar-es-Salaam for my undergraduate degree in law.
Dar-es-Salaam had a lot of lecturers living as refugees in Tanzania. My life in Dar was most exciting because it gave me an opportunity to hear and learn Kiswahili sanifu and meet Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the then President.
Whenever we were free, we would go to a nightclub in Ubungo. We had much fun and no one cared whether you attended class or not. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had completed two years ahead of me, but we lived in the same house, while Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete was a year behind.
Ambrose Rachier, founder and senior partner at Rachier & Amollo Advocates graduated with an LL.B degree from the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Class of 1974, before earning an LL.M from the University of Nairobi.
-As narrated to John Lawrence
