“I am so happy that you came,” Chema said as we studied the long queue ahead of us.
“It’s the least I could do.” I said this then studied her face; lovely as usual. The queue was very long, and the university was still stuck in paper work and red tape, but it still boasted of excellence and utilization of information technology. With my impatience, I could not wait and had to go straight ahead of the queue.
I found Angie, the student leader, doing the registration.
“Hi Angie, long time no see! How have you been?”
“Rain! How have you been?”
“Very good, can you do me a favour?” I said pointing in Chema’s direction.
“Uh, she is pretty!” Angie said then smiled. In a few minutes were we done with the registration.
As we walked our way to the halls of residence, we saw various colourful tents with hundreds of dysfunctional organizations, each calling upon us. Chema was attracted to one, and she convinced me to follow her.
“Hi, the two of you!” a bespectacled lady started then handed us a brochures about their organization. “We are like the FIDA of this University,” she paused for a while then pointed to various posters on their tent.
“You are the ones who take care of women rights here?”Chema inquired further.
“Exactly, we ensure that ladies are comfortable and that they pursue their careers to the maximum,” she replied enthusiastically.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
She looked at me, adjusted her skirt then almost with a sneer replied, “Look at this pictures,” she pointed to photos of two young men. “This Peeping Tom, kept disturbing ladies at hall 4 for a long time by watching them regularly when they were taking a shower, when we swung into action, he was expelled from University’s halls of residence.”
“This other man,” she said pointing to the picture of a hapless dude. “He was brought in a girl from Koinange and they ‘did a combination’ with his roommates. We later discovered that the girl was actually one of our students and when we stepped into the case, the guy was suspended for a 1000 academic days.”
Their mandate seemed to spread wide and they would make wonderful lawyers and spinsters for that matter, but I just kept the comment to myself. Chema was so interested and signed in to the group. She also registered with two other groups, the SDA and another one which were giving out wristbands but whose name I can’t recall.
As we walked to her hostel, hall 15, Chema was still elated despite the strenuous registration process. We went straight to room 112 and we found that her roommate had not yet reported.
“I think, I should leave now,” I said.
“Well, we can hook up later, I also need to tidy up this place,” she said. We hugged briefly and I left.
At the gate the watchman, was enjoying groundnuts and listening to his transistor radio. It was important to create a good rapport now, knowing very well that I would be making several visits to hall 15, most of which would be at restricted hours.
When I took a corner to the left, hall 20 was now in clear view, that would be Stella’s hall and it was just one week before she would come to that hall.
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