STORYMOJA

It was my first day at university. I arrived early that morning, dragging my huge suitcase behind me, a small iota of apprehension creamed over with a larger dose of adrenaline in the form of excitement. As I walked by, male and female students moved up and down talking in a myriad of ways: animatedly, softly, emotionally, loudly and some, discreetly.

I felt like all eyes were feasting on me greedily, like a white cock in the middle of black hens.

The bored security personnel hardly acknowledged me as I went through the gate to the administration block. In the circular parking lot in front of the building, several makes of government vehicles were parked in tandem. To the far left was the college bus, an old drab-looking Leyland with peeling paint, dented fenders, and on further scrutiny inside, seats that were fastened into position using ropes.

A second bus was in the form of a five-ton Isuzu truck that similarly had a peeling, rusted body and a shaky carrier. Later, I learned the students had nicknamed it Kibiriti – because in addition to having face-me type of seats, its carrying container resembled a matchbox.

I spent quite some time in the dark administrative building waiting for people who were not in a hurry to report to work and not in a hurry to start working.

Apart from the drab security personnel, everyone else seemed to report to work late, half asleep, winded and nursing either some huge hangovers or wisps of domestic squabbles and their effects. As if this wasn’t bad enough, they took an extra one or two hours moving up and down, greeting seemingly everyone familiar on the entire floor before any work could commence.

Finally, half an hour later, the door to the registry was unlocked. The workday appeared to have started.

An old chubby lady had been up and down, greeting colleagues, feasting, stoking and haggling on threadbare yester year jokes and reminding them of an upcoming burial, last weekend’s wedding, the next merry-go-round and whatever other mass business, while busying herself locating keys, files, books, folders and ledgers.

After what seemed like hours, she finally took her worn out seat behind a wide clattered working table and gave a big sigh. She must have been tired already.

I was the first one in a long queue. I went into her office.

She had a toothpick roaming in her mouth, but I noted that her concentration was roaming even further a field. She was seated behind the most confused working area I have ever seen in my life. What seemed like every possible piece of office junk, office gadgets, tools, old magazines, newspapers, nail cutters, a cracked and stained make-up kit, nail files, bottle openers, tubes of jaded nail varnish/polish, over-filled ashtrays and whatever other manner of items were in a mixed-up parade on that office desk. She took about twenty minutes taking stock of each item while looking for those she couldn’t find.

Finally, almost at ten, work commenced.

“You are new and want to register?”

“Yes, madam.”

“What is your name?”

“Boniface Gachugu.”

“Where do you come from, Gachuhi?”

“Njoro in Nakuru. It’s Gachugu, not Gachuhi.”

“Okay Gachuki, you said your first name is?”

“Boniface, Boniface Gachugu.”

From the confusing clatter of items, books, papers, tools and equipment on the desk, she finally plucked a dusty pen from a stained pen stand, but realized it was not writing.

I had imagined it wouldn’t. She shook it severally, and tried again, but it only left a faint disjointed line on the faded blotting paper she was scribbling on. She pulled out yet another, but this one was even more pathetic.

Slowly, noisily and magnanimously, she rose from her seat, her huge bulk making and causing an orchestra of noises; from the groaning of her seat, the sucking squelch of the upholstery, and the creaking of her joints to the swishing noise her nylon dress made. She lumbered out, dragging the soles of her shoes noisily on the worn out wooden-tiled floor. Her skirts was embedded in the crack of her buttocks.

“Let me borrow a pen from the next office,” she offered carelessly as she vanished through the door.

Twenty minutes passed by.

Thirty minutes…

One hour later, she came back; tooth pick intact in her mouth. She had no pen.

“You are new and want to register?”

“Yes madam.”

“What is your name?”

“Boniface Gachugu.”

“I see. You’ve said Gachuru?”

“No, GA-CHU-GU. Gachugu.”

“You see Gashogu…”

“It’s Gachugu not Gashogu.”

“Sorry I seem to forget a lot. So all I am telling you Gashogu is…”

“My name is…” I gave up.

She took her seat with a loud sucking belch and started searching for a pen on her working table once again. She poised in a disturbed state. Her hand rose to her face and several hard bony fingers confronted and attacked the edge of her forehead onto which an old messy wig perched. Motes of dandruff particles immediately rose from the scalp of her head and took to the air in protest.

She tried the same inkless ballpoint pens she had tried earlier on.

I was appalled by all this confusion. I could not but keep staring at the old enormous mahogany desk spilling with endless heaps of files, old books with falling pages, big brown envelopes, dog-eared magazines, hodge-podge pages of un-matching newspapers, an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts, a cranky looking push-the-numbers telephone and other endless junk.

“But where is this pen?” she muttered, tapping on the papers covering a big portion of the desk. Great clouds of dust rose to the air as she continued tap-tapping on the great mounds of paperwork. In a disturbed state, she dragged her shoes to a corner table and fished out an old faded thermos flask with a broken handle from a huge old basket. A plastic cup, similarly old followed.

She poured herself a generous amount of milky tea.

I rummaged through my bag and gave her my pen. There was no acknowledgment. She opened and closed several filling cabinets behind her until she unearthed what she was looking for: a seemingly new yellow file. I was shocked at its brightness. On the top left, it was indicated with a thick felt pen, Reference Code, DIP/AAI class 2002-2005. There was actually a system?

She perused through it with slow Machiavellian thoroughness.

“Your admission letter?”

I gave it to her. She thumped the file to the next available space and pen poised, asked, “What’s today’s date?”

I told her.

“What is your name again?”

Of course, I now was annoyed by all this pettifogging, but patiently, I repeated my name again S-L-O-W-L-Y. She wrote it down in spidery handwriting. Gachugu was misspelled.

“Wrong!”

She looked up so sharply I feared she had been shocked by electricity on her bottom. A bolt of fury squeezed her face into a tight sneer. The toothpick dropped from the corner of her mouth in fear.

“I know exactly what I am doing, okay? I have been here even for decades before you were born.” She glared at me hard and unrelenting.

“Yes, but you have misspelled my name.”

In a harsh flourish, she spun the file round so it faced me and passed the pen to me. I corrected my name and passed back the file.

“How old are you?” The toothpick was back and intact.

“22.”

She wrote 28.

“What is your name again?”

“Boniface, Boniface Gachugu.”

“Do you have your I.D, your school leaving certificate and a banker’s cheque of not less than half the school fees indicated Mr. … eh, what’s your name again?”

She was repeating what was indicated on the admission letter, which I had thoroughly gone through.

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

It was almost eleven when I finally finished with the lady. I forgot to ask her to pass back my pen; it was that stressing.

The line left behind was even longer. God help them, I prayed silently. God help us all.