Irony of ‘creative’ varsities stuck with stone age tools

I finally took a prolonged leave of absence to take up a job with the Social Science Research Council in Brooklyn, New York. With all its excitement and thrill, the relocation from local academia seemed inevitable.

Moi University was more than just a workplace. It had this familial feeling that home represents, and a change was welcome.

You see, my dad worked for Moi University for over 33 years as an accountant. My mother was a stay home mum. We had the privilege of living in campus housing, a close-knit community of middle-class Kenyans from the mid 1980s, right in the former forestlands that comprised the famed Lonrho tanning company. Looking back, this was a head start in many ways.

Getting into college was taken for granted. We simply had to make it, or just drift right into the one across our doorsteps. Naturally, many among us preferred to get into any college except the one across the steps. We thought we would never experience college as other young Kenyans did, with all the parental oversight and the knowing looks at every turn. Many did find that escape, and many more found that the college at the doorsteps had something more scholarly to offer than just the familiar. Many of my childhood friends would later get their degrees there.

Hard copies of evidence

For me, it provided me a livelihood, and my first actual job. And fetching that undergraduate degree from Maseno University years earlier was a welcome detour and a season of much self-realisation. But the academic punch would hit while back again at Moi University for the MA.

A year before completing my doctoral studies in Germany in 2013, I made three job applications. It is advisable to start job applications a year before completion. The first application was a response to a job advert at the University of Nairobi. The second was to Moi University and the third was an application to a two-year Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand.

For the Kenyan universities, I had to ship in 10 hard copies of evidence that I had undergone formal schooling. I asked my referees to mail their letters. For Wits (pronounced ‘veets’), as the university is popularly known, I did a cover letter to the chair of the Media Studies Department and emailed attachments of copies of my testimonials. An interview was arranged online and an offer was given within a week. Necessary paperwork was emailed, and I took a train to the South African consulate in the city of Munich. Within a few days I had the permit posted.

Lately, things have become pretty murky for academics from other African countries wishing to work and pursue post-doctoral research in South Africa. I think, partly due to growing intolerance and a misguided narrative of South African exceptionalism. It is no longer a desired destination for academic talent. Anyhow, I secured a two-year placement at Wits just weeks before I defended my PhD thesis at Bayreuth.

Four weeks later, I heard that the University of Nairobi had shortlisted me for an interview. My wish to work in Kenya was about to materialise. A short message was sent a few days later inviting me to appear for an interview in four days. I requested for an online interview. I was informed it would be considered. I heard nothing. On the night before the interview a text was sent that I should physically show up at 8am the following day at some room within the university.

Later, after working and understanding hiring practices in local universities, I learnt that this practice was common, and neither was it malicious. While our universities talk big on innovation and creativity, there is not much of that adopted and practised. The university bureaucracy is content with rigid and bureaucratic procedures comprised of shuffling and pushing paperwork. Very few universities consider email a formal means of communication.

Emails may be read but only rarely replied to. Only one or two public universities have functional official email infrastructure, with most using Gmail or Yahoo platforms. Despite all the hullabaloo of a thriving silicon savannah in Kenya, I never heard of any local university hire faculty through the use of modern digital technology. Any Kenyan in the diaspora, or foreign trained academic hoping to work locally, must make the necessary sacrifice to be physically present.

Well, I returned to Kenya at the end of October and finally decided to settle in Eldoret. With only savings to rely on, the choice of Eldoret was equally practical. It was easier to rent a suburban house as opposed to being hoisted in a high-rise wobbly structure somewhere in Githurai.

Text message

I interpreted living in those high-rise flats as akin to robbing my kids of childhood. Eldoret afforded me space, green grass and clean air. Meanwhile, I prepared the logistics of housing in the city of Johannesburg. To start out, I planned a house share arrangement with a political scientist from Senegal I had met at a conference. This is a pretty common practice among academics starting out in expensive cities. I had hoped the family would stay in Kenya, and probably join up once I settled into the rhythm of Johannesburg. I informed my would-be colleagues at Wits that I planned to start at the end of January 2014.

Meanwhile, we were sliding into the festive Christmas season. The Eldoret December dusty winds were unrelenting, as farmers prepared the corn harvest for the year. One morning, around mid-December, just after having breakfast and dusting up for another round of driving lessons, I saw a text message. It was from Moi University. “Your interview is scheduled for 10am, today!” the message announced. It was followed with a call. “Where are you?” A year after making this application, I was lucky to be within 40km – and driving distance – of the interview room.

I leaped into the only suit I had, and for the first time, as a trainee driver and without a driving licence, I took to the highway heading for a village strangely named Kesses. It translates to obscenity in the local lingo. The interview was over in 15 minutes. I had my first academic job. My sojourn to South Africa ended before it started. And hence began my life as an academic in Kenya.

- The writer works for the Social Science Research Council in Brooklyn, New York