MY YOUNG TORMENTED MIND

A typical. Local, African child would have thought exactly what I had thought at first. That is why I always say that is it not good to be born and raised up in a third world country-like Kenya.

Of course Kenya is a beautiful country, but the bitter truth remains that we are not exposed to opportunities equally; reason as to why there is a huge margin between Westlands and Eastlands; both in Nairobi.

Think with me here, or rather, help me think.

Did you ever be in my shoe? Listen, when I was young, probably ten, I knew what a degree was. Yes, you got me right, a degree I said.

In my young mind, I knew a degree to be a small stone; a pebble for that matter. This thing was supposed to be given to me, perhaps I could carry it round my neck and everybody in the village would know that the son of so and so has a degree.

This is the same thing I expected Almasi in Ken Walibora’s Ndoto ya Almasi, to give to his nephew Dina. For the sake of them that are not familiar with the text, Almasi was arrested and spend some years in jail for a mistake he did not commit at St. Joseph’s high school. Being close to Dina, Almasi’s mother told Dina that his son had gone to study. So Almasi comes back home from jail and the first mind-boggling question that Dina asks his uncle after her grandmother insists Almasi was in school is, “Basi wapi digrii”?

Maybe Dina had then same mind as me, but who knows? She might have had a completely different - but similar thoughts like the ones I had while growing up.

Now I have learnt that a degree is a piece of paper. Really? This is a great disappointment to me, isn’t it?

You know there is no way I will be walking around with my degree hanging on my neck – like a chain – as I had first thought. Isorait, Isokay.

This made me change my mind a little bit. See? The degree and my all learning is in the mind; in soft copy. No swaggering around with anything except this chain I am having on my neck, which I cunningly, but honestly took from my girlfriend, Mary.

I bet my sons and daughters will get to know some of these things at an earlier age.