Surely, shelter is a basic human need, otherwise why, or what would make the NUC students arrive in droves three days prior to the official opening date of the university if not the fear of missing out on cheap campus hostel accommodation, because I’m not just about to kid myself or let you kid yourself that it’s for the love of the books that these campus kids used every available option to be on the wildebeest migration town before Monday the 12th!!!
Arrive they did and I believe everyone hoped they would be the only early birds to arrive only to be disapproved by the many students they met in town for one could or, can tell a NUC student out of a crowd in Narok town because of the reasons which are a story for another day, all I can say Is watch this space!!
Anyway, the taxi operators and the hotel owners made a killing on those two days and by the way cant the university offer accommodation on lets say a 100 bob for students who come mapema and pick them from Narok town?!just a welcoming gesture! Or I’m I asking for so much? The real hell was now the act or the part of booking a room, no-body could understand why a whole university which was awarded with a charter just the other day, has to apply stone-age methods of students booking a room and paying fees by queing(remember the famous KANU queuing methods of voting?) when a mere I.T boy armed with a laptop could create a programe that enables students to book a room online and this is after verifying that one has already paid the necessary fees and so all you need is to come and pick your key on the material opening day.And did they have to opt for such a small room when there was an alternative of the hall?
After the hustling and bustling of getting a room and ensuring that one did not land at the Runda famous for its black-outs, and nay,im not talking about the kamoja-kamoja induced black outs,im talking about the KPLC ones!!,it was time for worry number two, I mean sorting out things with the respective schools that one did belong to and ensuring that you have not been awarded a chance to drink sup!!ie,confirming that you don’t have a supplementary exam, I mean it’s painful to pay money so that you seat in an exam when you had a chance to cheat on it by passing it!!the thought of I parting with my four hundred just to seat for an exam, especially mathematics had me consulting my ancestors for divine guidance!!!by good luck, they seemed to know how incompatible math’s and I are and hence did the necessary by confusing the lecture to think I was a math’s genius!!!(hope he doesn’t think of remarking my paper ater seeing this because…!!)by the way everyone was so engrossed in these activities such that on that Monday the Sinai slum fire tragedy passed unnoticed, may the souls of those that perished in the unfortunate incidence rest in peace, amen.
Then I have to touch on the internet on the campus thing, I salute Kimtai and Dansoh,for providing us with net because the campus will not although they can, the library where there used to be free and slow net no-longer functions, neither does the computer lab, in other universities, one can access the wireless net from the comfort of the field as you bask on their “frustration benches”, but since here we bask on the stairs at the podium on the field, why can’t we be provided with free net? in a university that offers a degree in computer science? Or if they lack the technical know-how,(I’m sorry to the I.C.T department guys because that might sound like an insult to them, but all truths sound like that anyway!),then the university should pay these new two kids on the block, they simply count the number of students and subscribe on their behalf, unlimited access to internet for the rest of the semester. Period.
On the student centre, it’s a pleasure to have entrepreneuring students who are willing to supply us with goodies but can’t they get a bigger room, I mean I don’t get it how a single room will host the three groups who have won the tenders, I thought it was a temporary arrangement but I see its being turned into a lifelong affair. I hope the completion of the new hostels and the new academic block comes with a solution to that.Oooh,and please we hope the new hostel has some warm water else those of us that are allergic to cold water….and by the way, we understand there are some fresher’s around? The poor kids!!What’s making them so timid, or mr.Chacha of HELB has not paid them a visit, let’s see you guys, you belong to us if not with us!!have a drama-free-semester
The writer is a second year journalism student and you can follow him and more of his articles on his blogging site; http://munenemugo.blogspot.com
