They don't even give it a thought that anything can go wrong. This is because they think that they've finally made it to the highest learning institution in the land.
It's never a gloom for the continuing because a new semester also marks the arrival of new students. To the old students, this means a fresh supply of boyfriends and girlfriends. This now marks a start of drama as the students sharpen their seduction skills. Well, seduction is an art and I enjoy the theatrics too.
Arrival of new students thus adds spice to the first semester in campus.
This is the time when the moneyed can be spotted miles away. From their exergerated language, walking style and also 'cladding'. It's the period when wallets are bursting at the seams of Helb loans, money from parents and also other legal and illegal sources.
In the cafeteria, their eyes are fixed on meals like chicken, beef and fish. Forgetting the fact that at other times they spend a lot of time trying to budget for the cheapest meals.
While they used to whisper orders for ugali sukuma not so long ago, now with pockets bulging, they shout their orders even before arriving at the counter. "Prepare full chicken." They even instruct the cook to prepare some exotic foods like hotdogs and hamburgers.
When the food they desire misses from the menu, they go out in disgust yelling. Then start accusing the institution for offering students 'fake food'. They then quickly make their ways to the nearest restaurant where they eagerly indulge their appetite for the hotdogs.
Lecture halls also bear witness to the season of money. Sweets and gum wrappers and juice and soda bottles scattered side by side with empty coffee cups. Such times also mark the most intensive battles for romance among students.
Come Friday, popularly known as the official day to kick off "sherehe" as they say, everyone troops to the nearest entertaining joints. The seriously moneyed will hire a car and with their lovers, drive to exclusive bars normally out of town.
Other aspects of campus life also revert to normal with the disappearance of wealth. Students go back to the campus cafeteria where beans and ugali once again become the norm.
Now, the orders are whispered to the cooks, Friday come and go unnoticed since there is no money. The former lovers no longer go out and there is no shortage of the excuses such as they are saving for their future.
Very few lovers will be seen hanging out holding hands or exchanging sweet nothings.
As the semester approaches it's old age, life becomes desolate. Many students are completely broke and are trying to find ways to atleast get afew coins. Those who want to avoid their partners will swap mobile phone lines and fake loss of their phones.
Back in cafeteria, the lowest priced items on the menu are the first to get finished. Milk and eggs are left for another day. As the cash famine bites, some also decide to sale their electronics i.e phones, sub-woofer speakers and radios. Outsiders now take advantage of buying these items at throwaway prices.
Now the season of draught has hit the students with a vengeance. A long serving cook at a local university captures the mood when he says, "in the beginning of the semester, students feed on chicken and other tasty dishes, as the semester progresses they feed on chicken products while at the end of the semester, they feed like chicken."
Goodbye...
A nice article 👌
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