The Inmates of Room 38

Room 38

The only one in our entire block that harbored only three students, all others had four. To the fourth bed they had summoned last rituals of decommissioning and hauled the autonomous parts up and over the wardrobes.

If it were you in Room 37, it would take you three weeks to realize that indeed the next room had only three occupants opposed to the elaborate four you’ve counted moving in and out of that room. It will dawn on you that the fourth one you had imagined to be a member of Room 38 is in fact the undergraduate Engineer’s girlfriend.

It’s not your fault, it’s hers.

She was everything but a lady. Her steady manlike strides deceived you. Countable strands of hair on her hilly head made for an epic of ancient footballers playing in a 3km stretch of playing ground, each player hundred meters apart. She couldn’t have made it worse by occasionally trying out her man’s Savco trousers. She was a man, in men’s room. Room 38 it was.

Our very own Room 37 was the Eutopia of Campus Hostels. No booming music, no women, only Okello’s shoes. They told stories at night and we listened with our noses. Woe unto you if sleep evaded you for long. We longed for nights to end, I even remember Hillary saying a prayer to this effect. Into the depth of a cold night the son of man went on his knees and asked God to ‘intervene’ if He really loved His people in Room 37.

Room 37, a haven of Okello’s Shoe Dominance

‘’Look God, we never even bring women here, we are spotlessly clean, save us’’, Hillary petitioned to Nyasaye Nyakalaga. Okello never heard this prayer. This moment finds him delivering his second, a supplement to whatever his shoes are already serving us; calamitous snores. Our room was a peaceful haven.

The three from Room 38: An undergraduate Engineer, a tobacco addict and a Brother in the Christian Union. A formidable combination if you’re looking for the smallest school of life. From six square meters you were bound to learn about hydraulics from the Engineer, the benefits of smoking tobacco at 3 a.m bare chested out in the dew and finally the C.U brother would give you a lesson in tithing and donning loosely fitting black coats in the noon of day. Three most important lessons if you ask me.

The Tobacco man had an aura of animosity poured all over whenever he stomped across the hall to or from their room. Late in the night would drop into his gumboots and take a puff out in the cold. He had only his underwear on (and gumboots) for such exercises.

Out for smoke

That his Engineer roommate’s girlfriend is the only female the beds of Room 38 knew doesn’t mean there was only one ‘real man’ in the room. Mr. Nicotine had a village sweetheart visit him in school. I only saw her once, and I still wish I never knocked on Room 38 to ask whoever was inside to turn down the volume of their sub-woofer.

 

He turned it down- the Tobacco guy- and I was glad. I did not last another minute in my room, and no it wasn’t Okello’s shoe this time. Matter of fact Okello was this very moment attending a make-up class and I had sought to take advantage of this rare chance in our room and have that long afternoon nap. I did not.

Belligerent thrusts and drawn out wails, Room 38 was on fire; sexual furnace.

You see, when I went to ask my Tobacco friend to turn down his sub-woofer volume I found him and his village sweetheart, barely 17 (She hadn’t discovered weave). So as it turned out, I should have just had patience with the woofer. Now I had two options, storm into Room 38 and nicely tell him that all of a sudden I’m missing the music from his woofer or just leave my room and come back later. We all know the third option (continuing to sleep- rather pretending to) is a no no for a man like me.

I walked away, in regret- the wails of a teenage girl fading with every step I made further and further from Block G; the establishment that housed Room 38.