Someone said that all of us can point to a time, a moment, a season, a decision that altered the course of your life. A fork on the road where a step in a different direction would have meant a completely different life. It could be a last minute decision to change your University course choice, or the day you walked home by a different route and met your future Wife, or something more dramatic, like the day you discovered you were pregnant, out of wedlock, with a conservative and terrifying Man for a father…and the ensuing set of decisions that would alter your life forever.
I remember mine.
It had nothing to do with me though. It was the result of a resolve made by a 30 year old Man nearly 20 years before. A resolve borne out of a dream deferred, or shall we say sacrificed? We will come back to that later.
I was 16 going on 17. I was naive, with a voice barely broken, I had only ever really kissed one girl (in fairness she kissed me, and I just stood there dumbfounded like an imbecile). I was smart but clueless. All my schooling had been in the backwaters of Kenyan upcountry, my parents were what IMF economists would call lower middle class, there was nothing like social media or accessible internet for that matter, so what did I really know? The biggest town I knew was Nakuru town, and this was Nakuru back when Kibaki had just become president.
But a decision was made by one Mr. Muriu. He was flirting with 50 at the time, clearly running out of time, and impatient to get his brood out of the proverbial nest. I had barely settled into enjoying my first Christmas after clearing Form 4, my last paper having been this Electricity practical that could only have been conjured up by the devil or one of his more sadistic minions. It had vandalized my brain cells wantonly to say the least. I was determined to exert my revenge through devouring as many of my Mother’s Chapatis and Mandazis as I could. I was ready to pause the winds of time, become the lazy bone I never had a chance to be growing up, maybe finally really kiss Ciku, that pretty girl from down the road, if she still liked me that is.
It was not to be.
In his usual nonchalant fashion, Mr. Muriu announced that I was to start college in January, barely 2 weeks away. A last minute spot had been secured for me at the most revered Strathmore University. A course had been chosen, and a deposit paid. A close cousin who was already at said University had been co-opted into being my guardian Angel and city guide. Another cousin, whom I had never heard of before, had been convinced to offer me abode at the nearby Kiambu town for a term as I found my footing in the intimidating City of Nairobi. I lost my appetite, forgot about the girl down the road, and suddenly felt the urge to visit a toilet. Sleep took a sabbatical as well.
Unbeknown to me, this was the Moment that changed it all.
Many a time I have tried to conjure up fantasies of what life could have been had I for instance said, ‘No Father, after 14 years of back to back chewing and digesting of books, I’d like a year to just be, to find myself, maybe go backpacking across the Aberdare ranges before I join University’.
It’s been over 20 years since, and I still can’t form a coherent alternative picture. I was a child of a Kenyan, staunchly Catholic, rural home after all. Obstinacy was anathema. That’s fancy way of saying any form of rebelliousness had been whooped, guilt tripped, preached upon, sacramented upon and exorcised out of me long before this Moment. I had Zero chance of an alternative life choice.
And so come January of 2004, while Kibaki (the late) settled into his second year of a hard won presidency, I packed what an Olkalou boy would consider his best attire for a college life in the City, and accompanied Mr. Muriu on a 4 hour Matatu journey to Nairobi.
And the Madness began.
