Eng. Kochola spoke with a slight stutter. He was a brilliant mathematician, and my lecturer at National Youth Service Engineering Institute (NYSEI). There is no freedom of worship in Kenya, he declared one day in class. We stared at him questioningly. If there were, he explained, then I would be allowed to freely and openly worship the devil. We all burst out laughing. See, he was an atheist. Yet he claimed he always dropped his family in church every Sunday before he went for his pint, and never once tried to impose his beliefs (or lack of them) on them. Kochola was a jolly man, and we all looked forward to his lectures. He knew majority of us hated mathematics, but his favourite refrain was, Your bible says love your enemies. Mathematics is your enemy. He was a very jocular fellow. He once confessed he usually took a few glasses of wine before attending any lecture; thus his ever mellow mood in class. I remember once during his lesson, he gave us a problem to solve and later went round the classroom checking how we were doing. He stopped at one Muhoros desk and after seeing what he was doing, he called him an idiot. Muhoro was visibly offended. In an effort to pacify him, he patted him on the shoulder and cooed, Look here Mr. Muhoro, Im not saying you are an idiot. But what you are doing, only an idiot would do. The laughter was deafening. Even Muhoro joined in, in spite of himself. Yet another day, he came to class flat sober and we were all the worse for it. He was in such a foul mood, and it didnt help he was explaining a particularly difficult concept (Greens theorem about the relationship between a line integral, a double integral and a plane region). We stared at him blankly and he raved in a very uncharacteristic fit of rage, You Damn fools! I think Im teaching a bunch of unteachable idiots! And he stormed out. Indeed, Kochola tipsy and Kochola sober were two different people. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ***** Never sell yourselves short when you go out there, Mr. Mbugua, the digital electronics lecturer, never failed to remind us. Its an unforgiving world. As an example, he gave us an example of how once, after college, his immediate neighbours took their faulty television set to his house for repairs. His neighbours were two very beautiful sisters. When he was done and asked for payment, they sent one of them to him as payment. He declined and asked for cash. Nobody believed him. Mbugua was always laughing. He could laugh at anything. One day he asked a classmate, Onyango, something about electrons, protons and neutrons. Onyango mumbled sotto voce that he didnt know the answer. Mbugua started laughing uncontrollably; and amid laughter he told Onyango, You, of all the people! I thought you were saved? If you can so vividly describe fire and brimstone in hell, yet you have never set foot there, you are best placed to imagine electrons flowing through a conductor! We all now joined in the laughter. ***** Let me tell you something about Onyango, my erstwhile classmate in college. Onyango liked describing things in technical terms. He could describe a dead rat in such a way youd think it were edible! He also liked using touchy phrases when addressing people. He was therefore our unofficial class spokesman. He also claimed to be born again (saved). One day during Mr. Washikas fault diagnosis lesson, Onyango could barely stay awake. Washika condescendingly ordered him out. Onyango countered he was not feeling well, so he was excused. After the lesson we were all over Onyango, demanding an explanation why he lied he was unwell yet he claimed to be saved. What do you understand by unwell? countered Onyango. I didnt say I was sick or ill. Unwell could mean tired or even bored. Smart aleck. No further questions, your honour. ***** Intrinsically, thermally generated, minority charge carriers. You miss one word, I cross your answer. We called him Ahmed Johnson. His name was Mr. Lusimba, but he in every inch resembled the legendary wrestler. He even shaved clean. He was a no-nonsense martinet lecturer in telecommunication principles, albeit affable as long as you toed the line. He was a marverick who hardly followed the college protocol. He would for example skip a lesson, then unapologetically ask us to stay put after classes; hed cover the lesson then. I remember one day we sent the class representative to report him to the principal because he had skipped four consecutive lessons and thus we were terribly falling behind in the syllabus. All this while he just sat in the staffroom. Mr. Marusoi, the principal, sauntered into the staffroom and asked of the unperturbed Lusimba, Mr. Lusimba, I thought you were supposed to be lecturing second year students now? Lusimba, unabashed, did not even bat an eyelid, Thats right. But Im not in the mood today. Marusoi didnt utter another word. Lusimbas masterly of telecommunication principles was unmatched. Indeed he attended lectures with nothing but a marking pen, yet he gave a fully fledged lecture and even dictated notes. Maybe thats why they let him stay on for so long despite his impertinence; until he eventually quit of his own volition. There was a time Lusimba gave us an end of term exam. In one question we were required to derive a certain formula and apply it in solving a problem. Aluoch, a classmate, did everything right, but inexplicably put a negative sign before the answer. Lusimba crossed the answer and did not award Aluoch a single mark. When Aluoch complained bitterly, claiming he almost got it right, Lusimba explained, In engineering, you cannot almost get it right. You are either right or wrong. Let me give you an example. Youve all seen the foot bridge across the road near Survey of Kenya (it was before Kibaki engaged the Chinese). Now, if the architect concerned put a negative sign at the end of his workings, what do you think the engineers would have built? No answer. An inverted bridge. Theyd have dug a trench across the road and built a reflection of the bridge you see today. That seemed to placate Aluoch. ***** Mr. Khakame replaced Mr. Lusimba as our telecommunication principles lecturer. But he was notging like Lusimba. He would ask a question, and if one answered, he would ask of the person who answered, And you are Mr. who? Kivuti, Id answer, for instance. Hed muse for a long time, then say, Mr. Kivuti, that is exactly what it is not! After going through the problem on the white board, he would eventually declare, It appears Mr. Kivuti was right, after all! He was a good man, but he was not experienced enough then. But we knew he meant well, so the least we could do was supplement his lessons with group studies. ***** At the National Youth Service (NYS), there are two centers of power: the uniformed staff and the academic staff. Servicemen are subjected to both administrations: Students by day, Servicemen by night and weekends/holidays. I have given you an insight into the former. Later I will write something about the latter. Sometimes these two powers clashed, but thats a story for another day.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 13:45:55 +0000
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