THE OTHER ROOMMATE

There is something about finding a confused  guy or some witty girl you'd gone to same high school with and now you happen to share a room in college,could be right inside  college or some cheap apartment off campus.You begin to think that maybe Adam Smith's invisible hand actually works right here in Africa,that it works to clear market imperfections present across much of state education systems.Better still you grow together,learn from each other,you share the happy moments and share the pains that come with college life,you pretty much find some common ground between the two of you.

That summer,straight from high school and suffering from identity crises,i was in  set to join a university in the central part of the country,a university whose name i'd never had come across.The closest i'd ever come to, was the 2005 destructive tropical cyclone(THE HURRICANE KATRINA) that swept much of Alabama and Mississipi in the states.

In its attempt to project itself as a conducive learning environment where i'd swim all the way to my dreams, which in fact am swimming to;the university in its admission letter decided to chip in some real public relations handbook,one that after reading had really convinced me this was just the right place for me,i'd resolved that from this university i'd be the next Martin Luther King,the one who would lead the next civil rights movement right  here in Africa.The desire to be Martin was partly driven by a line in the handbook that said the forest next to the university was a battle field between British imperialists soldiers and the Mau Mau.

From a panoramic view,Karatina like i'd come to know it, looked like some  colonial British village slowly rising into a town,dusty roads dotted much of the campus neighbourhood.They were clusters of buildings next to campus but not much to describe apart from a few shops and bars that outstripped shops in numbers.The community had been a close knit society i could tell from the way village folks  would look at students and burst into some endless banter about how things had really changed,the community was indifferent to the disruptions that college had in store for them.

At the admissions complex was long queue,i met people from different walks of life,some rich,some poor,the booming middle class,tall,short,skinny,plumpy and they all came in colours,even the ones i hadn't seen yet.Inside the complex were its occupants they looked much like those production line operators eager to pass through products in a conveyor belt.I would later equate education to a
production line,you came in a raw material and education with its numerous production lines turned you into a full new  product for the world and through its conveyor belt, pelt you out.

At the back i heard someone say"buda ni wewe cant believe it", i instantly recognised the voice it was Mike ,buda is a sheng word for dude.It was amazing seeing Mike again,he'd grown into this heavy set,muscular guy with some slightly  bushy beard.Its spectacular how people change after school especially that point where you become a longtime subscriber of civil liberties,actually i tend to think that the high school i went to actually operated like a Nazi cell.You would get beaten real hard even if biological gods did put up a show,time was spent reading not rolling to some washroom.
After a long admission procedure the forces of room placement had their way,Mike would be my roommate for the two years we'd board in campus,we'd share a room, the largest and most comfortable around.Our first semester as freshmen was about getting to know how wheels of campus rolled.Apart from the back to back of going for classes ,we killed time in lushy green tea farms that covered much of the campus landscape smoking weed and engaging in those high school memories banter, after all we'd shared a heritage sometime back.Sometimes we'd listen to music,Mike's a big fan of reggae and hiphop music.He'd owned a guitar at some point,a guitar that helped form a strong musical bond between us.
Time can pass real quick in college especially when you spend time around catching up with latest series in campus.The second semester was here,we were horny,and the urge to get laid was becoming super intense.The first semester had been spent combing books and living within the lines of parental discourse,one that had harsh words for fornication.Mike was good with girls and in this sense real good in spreading portfolios around campus.On the other side i did'nt really make progressive steps with girls i tend to think it was due to my introverted nature.I was quiet and in the event a girl came calling i would just stare blankly at space and feel an urge to just start talking about something about a new planet being discovered and you know how those conversations get killed before they even come to life.I never really got to understand the dynamics of getting into a stimulating conversation with a girl,i always kept wondering which type of gas he'd pump into girls that would always leave them laughing.
Communication and effective communication while at it,can be contagious my two year stint with Mike had me improve out there not only with girls but with a whole lot of other guys i needed on my side.I'd like to believe am getting better at it due to the fanatical base that i have now at least i no longer talk about a new planet with the girls i meet,silence feels more comfortable than it had ever been.
The second year in college proved a bit rocky especially with finances now that we had a wide social circle,spending money on friends became a thing.The pressure to show friends that you had them covered grew immense in me but never in Mike he'd taught me an important lesson, the need to balance the thin line between pleasing friends and staying financially afloat in college.I believe we cracked some personal finance code.Much of second year's first semester was hustle free,no more hungry nights and zero student loans in fact we now had some money for recreational spending and a bit for charity.
The last semester which actually marked the last time we'd share that big room came to an end it was time to pick  the bits i had learned and live on my own terms.Mike made me realize there is so much that makes people wanna hold on to sharing a room than one that drives wedges between them.Our differences in music tastes,fashion preferences,interests and opinions found a common place in the room we shared in the university,remember the name of the university.