To What Degree.

Not a normal day it was, not the proper Friday when his roommates dashed out with a big jacket in one hand and a phone charger on the other, whom he'd later see on Sunday evening gawking like zombies but happy and full of life, No! Today he wasn't happy seeing them leave and be crammed with joy to whack and snooze on any of the four beds he felt like as he dangled his feet on the wall, long calls with his just-found love, after finishing with his mother then fry his darling omena just the way he idolized it, enough salt, hard on the chillies, crunchy, with a thick Spoon of soup.

His buddy, the pilot (sleeping on the upper bed) from  Central Kenya had weird suggestions like adding more water, Thufu Modo, he'd say, or little carrots and cabbage, vegez my man. So he liked it when they were out because he didn't have to respond to him dramatically; if you add more water, they live again and they'll start swimming away, he did it with a stone face. The other two preferred eating out for they were not into eating anything staring at them. He wasn't in the Netflix mood either, by 6 pm he usually settled with like four of those long movies, the ones that one ends then another starts or you can shift to the next, and before you realize it you are left hooked like a coke addict, the next button now not when things are getting amazingly messy with a; in the next season. Leaving you bitter with the production director, now I have to wait until May 2025, you goddamn son of your mother.

Now at almost 9 pm, his phone at a distance away, the last time he touched it was at around 3 pm when a link had been sent through their WhatsApp group, click to view the unofficial transcript. He did click and everything veered. The room got cold and darker, the whole block went dead silent, just felt alien.  Resting on his back in the cockpit, looking at the ugly ceiling, somehow brown perhaps dark-white, grey if you look hard, creamy if you try to focus, and if you zoom in harder it's white but dusty, beyond that it's disgusting which makes you wonder why the administration wouldn't modernize these rooms or it's just the thing with erecting strong structures, just once and you forget about them. Nonetheless, he wasn't seeing either of these, he was lost deep in thoughts. Hefty at heart, tears almost flooding his young gorgeous face, the kind that spewed with a running nose, unnaturally loud voice, and mumbling to self, the kind that a stranger would call foreign if in a pub or spiritual if it's in those religious edifices.

He picked up his phone, today he wasn't going to call, he couldn't, it was Friday when they normally held Little chit chats with his mom. Mother-son connecting and teasing, always something magical with such conversation, not admirably ugly like the crazy one with just found love, but just sweet. So tell me how have you been son? The mother would start after greetings from all the relatives in the village to his beloved pet that ends with, you know it's an almost harvesting season, you should come, that's they say we miss you.

Have you found a new girlfriend, I hope they haven't stolen your laptop already, do you still have enough omena and flour? Then turn to gossip from the village, do you remember the son of so and so, your former classmate, oooh, he sold his piece of land and bought a motorbike, here, then his sheep to put some ugly looking light and some loudspeaker, now all he does is ride up and down the village with that noisy ugly new thing. Your cousin from the next village ran from school to get married, she's now pregnant, your uncle chased her away to go be with his beloved posh mill lover, you mean Mulamwa? So you know him. Here, my son just works hard, I don't want such humiliation. But today wasn't that day, he felt that humiliation staring at him hard on the face.

He was overwhelmed with this weird feeling he was facing inside him, he couldn't explain it for he had never felt it before, how could he have anyways, he was born a genius. mum, I think I can’t make it am quitting and coming back to start something else, maybe farming. Took a few minutes before he finally pressed that SMS send button, covering his face and guessing with his index finger for the button, he did hit it right and now again the feeling even got worse imagining his mother's reaction.

He was brilliant, the brains of the village the old folks dubbed riek ka musungu which loosely translates to as bright as a white man, crazy! By the time he was admitted to high school, he had already smashed every possible record in his county, from the best performing student to the best of the best in every single academic profile. He had even travelled to several conferences, Congress, and symposiums all courtesy of the government, gracing all the newspapers and news headlines, the Albert of our time, black, a piece that his father patched on the wall from a local newspaper. The triumph continued in high school and was the best student in his region and top ten nationally. His late father, the proud man in the village, thanks his genius son that accorded him that respect to even chair the village committee and have a say in the ministry of education board, he wasn't as bright as his son but that's the beauty of investing in your children studies, it opens doors sometimes you could have never walked through. He had organized a big party, all the great people came with gifts of all sorts, laptops to suitcases to lab coats and that doctor's earphone thingy, the one that listens to the heart. I think I should get one of those to find out what's happening inside there.

He finally got admitted to Kenyatta University, for a degree in civil engineering of course he still had his lab coat and the crazy earphone thing and a big cross like a ruler that he walked around with from hostel to hotels in the marketplace and a heavy laptop on his back. 2 years down the line things started going south. The genius in him was fading and he was struggling even with the basics of math, he couldn't understand it now that all his life he only knew academic prowess and couldn't come around someone not being able to decode basic academic stuff. He didn't know how to approach this, no one to talk to, he was the only one who had made it out of his school to a prestigious university. He only knew a few classmates whom he'd been in group projects with and his crazy roommates, who loved drinking and partying later got amazingly obsessed with books during exam time. He saw them wake up early morning or on the eve of their exam make some small threads of papers with tiny writings or take screenshots of their pdfs or notebook, if they had one. They'd walk out in the morning after calling some other friends and asking for Formations. He couldn't understand any of this, he knew the tiny pieces of paper were Mwakenya and formation. Was a code for teamwork but what he couldn't understand is why would someone cheat in his exams. He did his work, honestly spent much time at the library, doing assignments, and in his free time reading a book or watching a movie.

Today he was shattering, with no one to explain to him how to handle failure. He had his phone ring a few minutes later and knew it was his mum. He broke into tears as words couldn't come out of his mouth. She couldn't understand what he was saying. His son was the brightest of all and this crying that he was giving up just was nonsense to her, or perhaps she was torn too at the thought of shame, no I doubt so, she felt his son's pain and she was there to offer that shoulder, it's called parenting, some think it starts at first cry and ends at the last suckling or shitting in bed or replacing cry with reasons, no it never ends, just changes form. You don't understand mum, I've failed again two major papers, I’ll have to sit a whole year for them, I can't take it, mum. She was the kind that see endless hope while the rest are stuck with a hopeless end, she took a heavy breath, love soaking in her sweet tongue, and replied with encouragement, an assurance that he was the best. Take the thought of giving up out of your head, things get tough at times, not because you not working hard, studying smart or praying, No, they just become hard and there's nothing to do about them but to collect yourself and strike hard again. Relax, I'll pay the fee for you to sit those exams again. The call didn't last long, the silent breaks were too long, she eventually hunged up and promised to check with him the following morning before he headed out for the church. A strong devoted Adventist he was, and hoped that a trip to the church would brace his heart.

He had tasted failure and the feeling wasn't amazing. He thought to himself maybe he too should adopt the formation technique, unfortunately, he had no friends and he was too scared to make those miniature notes, the thought of being discontinued from the stories he had heard before but had never seen any. He also thought to himself about the crazy tale that lecturers at the institution never marked the exam papers instead they drew larger circles, marked them with A, B, C, and D then stood on much higher ground and threw the papers. If your paper got lucky and settled in any of the marked circles then you'd have yourself a grade and if unfortunate, then you settled for a  retake. It was always funny to him, but today he almost believed it, two of his papers didn't hit any of the marks again. Perhaps it's more of a prayer, what are the odds of your papers hitting the right target, hard work, no amount of ink can make a paper that heavy to land on a specific target. So he made up his mind, heavy at heart though that he was going to put it in prayer. No cheating, just work smart then pray. Why even work if all I took was prayer and luck that your paper hit the right target, so no more endless library reads, he resolved to join the rugby team and make friends and hang out on weekends, perhaps he had it all mistaken and indeed a degree was a Harambee.

Life on campus takes you through the darkest dreadful paths you could ever picture yourself taking, the ones you couldn't understand why someone resolved to cheat in exams, heavy on drugs, or a carefree lifestyle some even end up denouncing their religious oath, sometimes even pregnancies, suicides. Sometimes nothing seems to be working so To what degree of perseverance is your degree worth if no one had prepared you for such surges? Perhaps not fair to just put in hard work but add some touch of rules bending, call it working smart to make it. I don't know, but we can agree that academic excellence shouldn't be the only driver on campus, there is a whole life out there to live and learn, meet new people, learn other skills and face some of the riskiest situations in life, it's a field study for real life takes. Spend your time wisely, with the right mindset and connection bigger doors can be opened for you, just not always on books. My old Man use to say, he wasn’t wise just a dedicated drunkard but a realist, everybody is a killer you just gotta push them to their limits.  It's interesting to see people at their limits with no idea how to go about it!