Thread by @CSakwah

The Tale of a University Dropout
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Going back to my family and the society to report my decision to drop out of campus was going to be a mentally grueling and taxing task. I knew they would be disappointed, angry, happy, impassive even. What I did not know was how

far they would have extended these emotions.
I left the University of Nairobi at the end of the second semester, at the onset of the annual university long holiday.Therefore, it wasn’t unnatural for my cousin to find me at his home when he came back from his job in the evening

. He stayed in LuckSummer.
I spent the better part of my few days at his place creating ways to inform him that I had dropped out of school. I wanted to burden him with the task of informing the rest of the family about my decision. He was the eldest of my cousins.

If I thought that dropping out of school was going to ease things, I was wrong. Mental horror was just getting started.
Verbally telling him that I had just made up my mind to drop out of school was out of the equation. I was very apprehensive.

On the third day at his home, I conceived an idea. In the afternoon, I bought a 200-page exercise book. I labeled the book; MY STORY, SAKWAH. I don’t remember what I wrote in the book, but I remember the first few lines. The writings sounded like my memoir.

‘I have made up my mind to be the second member of the Ongoma family to drop out of school. Unlike my aunt who dropped out of school in form two, at least I am taking this milestone while in my second year of university.’

I went on to write more nonsense and gibberish in the book that amounted to two pages.
I placed the book on the table and left the house to visit a childhood friend called Collins. He was a student at UON, Upper Kabete. Collins was staying with his uncle in Kariobangi,

an hour’s walk from LuckySummer through Baba Dogo and Riverside estates.
First day, second day; on the third day, my cousin called me and asked me to go back to his place immediately. There and then, I knew it was going down.
At around 7 PM, I was in his house.

He requested his wife and the maid to afford us the sitting room's privacy. I sat down, edgy, panicky, and apprehensive. I leaned forward. How was he going to react to this? I held my hands between my legs and leaned forward. Alone, he walked to his table and picked the book,

‘I found this on the table, is it yours?’ He asked.
I merely nodded my head. ‘And what you wrote here, what is it all about?’
My initial reaction was to pretend that I was mad. He had invaded my privacy. He was not supposed to read my personal ‘journal’.

When I accused him of invading my privacy, he refused to buy my theatrics. ‘Is this real or what is this?’
Cornered, I admitted that the gibberish I had penned down was the true representation of my decision. He was infuriated, he raised his voice. ‘Are you for real?’

I nodded my head. He thought I was bluffing. Given our age difference, though cousins, we rarely shared joked.
‘And what informs your decision? Eh? Who permits you to make such a stupid decision?’
‘I am old enough to make my own decision. I am not going back to school,’

I replied as a matter of fact.
‘Have you ever heard a stupid statement? Do you realize that your future is at stake here? Where will you go to? What will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ He raised his voice higher and higher until I felt I could no longer bear him.

He was infuriated while I was growing more emotionally irrational. In my head, I thought I reserved the right to make decisions that affected my life, however negative the effects would be. Whatever may, UON was completely off my cards.

I rose on my feet and walked out of the house while he was still speaking. Our exchange had no solution other than one party calling it quit It was rude, yet the only viable solution.
‘I am calling home,’ he shouted while I was on my way out.
A lot was going on in my mind.

How will the people back home react? My grandmother’s old age left her fragile to news bearing a magnitude of such shocking negativity.
I climbed on the rooftop of the house. Ten minutes later, an aunt called me. I picked the phone.

I was edgy and tensed while I wondered how her reaction would be. She was calmer than I had anticipated. ‘So, I hear you are writing things?’ She asked.
She thought the writings were a warning to my family that I contemplated suicide. Did she misinterpret my cousin?

Or did my cousin also bear the mind that the writing had been a life-threatening warning?
Suicide was not an option, not at that time. It had been something back. I had considered widely while I was still on campus. I toyed with it on several occasions but none materialized.

Such regretful moments. I wanted to live, I wanted to make my grandmother proud in the future. I wanted to repay all that she had done for me.
My aunt tried to convince me not to commit suicide. I assured her that I wasn’t planning to do so.

After the call, my cousin came to the rooftop to talk to me. He too, probably thought that I was planning to commit suicide and employed a rather friendlier and calmer approach when engaging me. ‘I would advise you to consider this.

You are the first person from our family to make it to the University of Nairobi. You cannot throw away such prestige over anything else. Whatever it is, we shall find a solution,’ he offered. He was standing in the middle of the rooftop while I was on the edge.

He was making a step towards me like a lion would walk stealthily towards an antelope. Only that I was aware of his steps.
When he was close enough, I turned sharply and started walking towards the stairs. ‘I am going home tomorrow,’ I announced.

I can’t remember any day that I was more dramatic than this day.
‘Sure,’ he muted.
A day later, I traveled back home for the first time ever as a school dropout. My grandmother welcomed me home in the same way she always did whenever I was back from school; high school or uni.

She slaughtered a hen. Either she had not been previewed about my decision or she was too weak to talk about it. Conspicuously, none of my other family members, since my aunt on the rooftop, called to ask if truly I had dropped out of school. Their impassiveness was worrying me.

Knowing that I had made a mistake, I anticipated some harsh reactions from my uncles and aunts. None was forthcoming, and that made me wonder if my cousin informed them about my decision to drop out, or if he merely mentioned that I wanted to commit suicide.

I met a few peer friends and cousins also back home for the long holidays from their respective universities. At that time, I interacted with them naturally without bearing the brunt and shame of being a dropping out of school.

I knew a time would come when I will lose the friendship that I shared with them. I knew that time would come when they left the village back to school while I stayed back.
Days dragged by. It did not take two days before I found friendship with the drunkards of the village.

One of them used to work for my grandmother as a farm boy. Whereas I couldn’t access other drugs, cigarettes and alcohol were easily accessible. For the first time, I used the cheap spirits smuggled from Uganda. The spirits were in sachets that cost 50 bobs.

Officer, Imperial, and Simba spirits were easily available. And chang’aa.
These, I used to take in hiding. My grandmother is a staunch Christian. She could not have condoned my drinking or smoking habits. She was a senior and respectable member of the ACK Nambale Anglican Diocese

. She served in the position of the lay cannon up to her retirement.
I used to take the alcohol deep at night when everyone was asleep. I stayed in my house alone whereas my younger cousins used to sleep in my grandmother’s house.

Hiding my alcohol consumption habits from my grandmother were easier, but cigarettes?. I used to hide in our maize plantation next to the homestead at night to smoke cigarettes. One day after smoking, I walked back to my grandmother’s house to pick my phone on my way to sleep.

She asked me to sit down. She wanted to pray. ‘Have you sniffed the smell in the air? An evil person is puffing evil smoke into my home. It smells like a cigarette. They do these to confuse the brains of my children and grandchildren.

The malicious people have seen you around, now they are sneaking into our home to finish what they started. To confuse you into making more imprudent decisions. Aren’t they satisfied with what they have already done to you?’
I was calm.

So my grandmother was privy to my decision, yet she hadn’t confronted me about it yet? What was going on in my hand? She was the head of my family. I anticipated her confrontation more than anyone else’s.
We closed the eyes and prayed. She asked me to pray first.

It had been ages since I prayed. The last time I had prayed was a few minutes before I sat for my last KCSE exam papers.
I fumbled a short prayer. When it was her turn, she rebuked and admonished the person who had puffed the smoke in the air.

She raised her voice just in case the person was close by. ‘The God that I serve will destroy your plans in the name of the Lord,’ and I shouted Amen, the loudest. The man was sitting next to her. The man who had puffed the cigarette in the air was praying with her.

Hiding my drinking and smoking habits from my grandmother was the next challenge that I faced. I always thank God that while I was on Campus, I had not become the type of addict that suffers from withdrawal.

It was relatively easy to let go of other drugs that I could not access in the village. Equally, I thanked my cousin for bearing the burden of informing my family that I had dropped out of campus.