GIVE ME A BREAK!

Am I the only one who often encounters these fellows from the village (not always from the village, but literally out of campus, or never actually got to one) to whom campus is perfectly imperceptible as an institution for learning? To them, campus is the home of all debauchery, where boys only go foraging in better pastures than the ones they leave behind in the village. 

Yes, to them, we go to campus to unlearn all the morals that we were taught while growing up, and to do away with all the Christian ethics we ever knew. Campus is not a place they want to be in. They ‘hate’ it passionately just as they ‘hate’ those who go there. They look at us like campus has totally brainwashed us and as if we remember nothing of our past.

Neigh, brothers and sisters. Campus is just a learning institution, not a lurking place for the villains you see in us. We do not go to campus to evolve into the scamps you think we are, neither do we go to campus trade our dignity for dishonour. It has never been our intention to demean ourselves in the manner you think we are. 

If we changed our closet, we have only changed how we look and it doesn’t imply that we have changed how we look at people, or that we have let go of our respect for elders. If we changed our diet, then you must know it is not to give room for any alcoholic substances or for drugs, it could be for our academic well-being. 

Just because I don’t use my mother-tongue while conversing with my friends doesn’t mean I have forgotten it, or that I’m ashamed of it, not every conversation is enjoyable in any language, you know... You should know that just because my contact list is majorly constituted of females doesn’t mean that all I do is crave for their tastes in bed.

The world is changing and we have to change with it. My morals are no longer written in my outward appearance, but in my heart and in how I handle myself. Dreadlocks are just a hairstyle. Skinny trousers are just fashionable. If I come to church in a t-shirt, never mind, I just find it easier to wash t-shirts than shirts, and I know to God, shirt or t-shirt means nothing. 

The language I use is just an application of everything I’ve learnt throughout school, haha. From this moment, I guess you will not look at me in the face and quickly make conclusions on what a minion of fleshy passions I am. Well, I could be, but it is not what you are looking at that will prove. Okay, sociopaths? 

by Vincent Owino