My mother is very pleased with me these days. I look forward to college reopening. She at first looked at me quizzically thinking that I was only eager to escape from home. But she could only detect my usual happiness with coming home for the holidays, and in any case the January reopening is the one that fills me with the greatest excitement. I am quite sure she has not yet managed to differentiate between that and the other ones.
Actually my friends and I were filled with anticipation as soon as we heard, in the closing days of last term, that the kids were doing their final examinations.
"Wait till those fresh kids get here. Some of them will be our playthings when college resumes in January," we assured each other.
Other girls in our class only looked forward to making fun of the new girls as they came into campus looking bewildered by suddenly being the smallest. My friends and I have always looked at these other shallow-minded girls with a wry amusement. All they wanted was to have cruel fun at the expense of the new ones. Sometimes the new First Years would get beaten with pillows at night or made to run about in humiliating ways. One favourite trick is to give a newbie a small denomination coin and a list of groceries to buy as well as a demand for change. Sometimes they are required to do so in a given period of time, impossible to meet; if they were late additional beatings are meted out. Our form of welcoming the little ones is wholly different. We manage to have pleasure with our fun. At the very tender age of eighteen or nineteen they usually have little clue to the mysteries and sheer joy of sex. We show them the way. The best part is that we have done away with the need for the boys and their clumsy hands, empty words and messy aftermath.
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My bags are now stowed away in the back of the Toyota Prado my mother decided will take me back to campus today, with the old man who has been the driver at home for as long as I can remember. He manages to smell of a stale sweat no matter the time of day. I sit in the back seat having resigned myself to endure it yet again. I have to say that he does handle cars with expertise; never have I had a scary experience at his hands. Now he swings the car smartly onto the Nyeri highway from Forest Road. As we go past the Barracks I look longingly at the gates wondering about the freedom of not being in college any more. What fun it must be to be a soldier!
Then comes the final plunge into the valley that must once have been pathway of a very big river. All that is left now is a small straggling stream. Up the slope on the other side as we come to the place where they demolished a wonderful large supermarket last year to make way for the Superhighway. Even now the huge machines can be seen making a huge fuss, throwing up unbelievable clouds of dust. Lucky my windows are securely closed! Ngotho turns us in on the road that will take us some way towards the Windsor Golf and Country Club. Wonderful place, that. Once Dad took us there for lunch and it was just fantastic. The lawns so neat and green, the buildings reminding me of the ones we had seen in parts of England while holidaying there. And the waiters so polite and courteous. But today we will not go as far as Windsor.
The driver turns the Prado off into the very rough road into Thome Estate (someone once told me that Thome is a translation of Gateway, an estate just next to this one). I can see the barrier into the estate but whose effectiveness, I think, must be next to nothing. I have never thought it would prevent anything or anybody doing exactly as they pleased. Just past it as the road swings away to the right, the college gate looms and my heart begins to pound. Will my friend Delina have arrived yet? And this evening, as is our custom, we will go to Mrs Mweras house for our usual welcome back to college mΓ©nage-a-trois. It is so good to be back here!
The wicked girl must have been lurking behind some building because she jumps me near the tuck-shop.
"Eeeii-ii!" I squeal in surprise. We cling to each other feeling the warmth of our young bodies flowing into each other. Nobody looking at us will think anything unusual at all. She helps me roll my bag on its little castors towards our house dormitory, all the while chattering like magpies.
"How was your Christmas? You didn't invite you naughty thing!" she accused me jokingly.
"Weren't you on holiday is some fancy place?" I remind her.
"Gawd, I missed you!"