THE BALCONY

 The good old balcony at F Block, with its peeled grey painted walls, where we our skins enjoyed sumptuous sunshine in amounts that made its stomach grumble with satisfaction. It’s where loafed time once a lecturer has been caught up by more important things than teaching, which we liked anyway. Some would grumble at how they wasted their money, you know how matatus charge an arm and a leg during rush hour. It’s at this balcony, on the fourth floor, that we sympathized with them, cracked jokes, dirty jokes. More importantly it’s this balcony where we met before exams to plot our sitting arrangements and hold prayers that the lecturer woke up with beautiful lass by his side, thereby less troubles as he invigilates.

The Balcon, as our Luo friends called it, served as a de facto picture snapping place for the ladies.  They loved that damn place, like it enhanced features most important in their bodies. Often they borrowed those 13MP phones, ask a dude to take them as many pictures as possible, in different poses then ask the owner of the phone to send via WhatsApp pictures that she’d select from the many that were snapped. I wondered silently what happened to Bluetooth. There’s a queer fascination that WhatsApp inspires. I think I have found a subject for my PhD thesis.

For some of us who didn’t have lives, or stayed at home with their parents or siblings, those who found it boring to be wherever their heads rested every night, this was our place, our refuge. We’d crack jokes until a lecturer chased us for disturbance, some would even threaten to call the security guys for civil disobedience. Its here we’d admire how ladies had their asses packaged, rating and cheapening some. You can bet this was a favourite, for the boys. 

I seemingly didn’t have a life, probably because I came to Nairobi for the sole purpose of acquiring an education. And you’d find me there miserable, deep in thoughts about how to save a world that was rapidly sinking into oblivion, my world. I felt crushed and defeated every time a lecturer said he wasn’t going to make it to class. I would sit there with my black brief-case like bag, with it straps still running over my shoulder. I held that bag in high esteem. It had seen me through a high school, through a diploma course bag in college and now a degree course. It had faded slightly, and the right seam had got worn out through incessant rubbing with my ass. I think they made terrible friends. Years and years of seeing each other must have driven them nuts. Then this dude retired it unceremoniously. Oh my black bag, I can write an ode for you. I will write an ode for you, dear black bag.

 A moment worth mentioning here, is when I spent with a Kao chic. She had on a red dress that clung to her snugly like paint. On her feet were black slightly high heeled shoes. She was, and I still think she is, a lady of zero respect at least to me, based on my own parameters which might well be off track, though they head somewhere. And that place demands respect which wasn’t forthcoming from her. I am not going to divulge details of the nature of our relationship; because it is tinged with failures I have never wanted to learn from. 

She had asked me to take pictures of her which I promptly did. She has never bothered about them once I snapped. It’s like she wanted something fun to do. The balcony, being near the lecturers office, meant that male lectures would peep and call her in, which she obeyed pliantly. Some passed by and talked to her with those overtones that did not attempt to conceal intimacy, rushed as it may have seemed.

Now that she is back in the picture, I remember some of her not-so-good moments. She often asked very stupid questions like why is that chic wearing those tights? Hell, she could even ask why cars have wheels. She never knew where the @ sign on the computer was up the last semester of our university time yet she graduated.

Back to the balcony. Having decided that I actually had a life (you had to have one in her presence), I told her I wanted to leave for my hostel. She asked me to stay a little longer, as she made calls. Her phone never stopped ringing. Then a Luo dude pops up from the stairs, short and dressed in official attire. At that time a dude who had been hawking candies and sweets since we the university walked by. Luo dude asks her to take some. She says she didn’t want.

“Why?” Luo dude asks probably wondering her mental make-up.

“I don’t want to destroy my teeth,” she answers.

“Chuku ntalipa mpaka bill ya kung’oa meno,” the Luo dude says with the kind of false bravado associated with the lake side brothers.

I laugh a little and she does hysterically. She ended up taking a lollipop, having been assured that should she have a toothache, funds will be promptly disbursed to the dentist of her choosing. A little banter here and there told me that I was being intrusive to a couple. I strapped by bag on my shoulder and hit the road to my hostel.