'Teaching is a noble profession’
‘A nurse is like a mother, the second God’
‘Bring insecurity and there’s no humanity, give it up for askari’
‘Life is architecture from landscapes to rocks’
‘Engineering is the heartbeat of the society’
Nothing is so frustrating as to pick on ones career. It is like entering into a dark blaring hall with the sound of a drum, cymbals, piano, trombone and whatnot and being asked to identify one sound that impresses you. And it has to be quick. There is no time to waste.
Our environment is also uncompromising. You grow up behind a hill, go to school, pass your exams then somebody asks you ‘What career do you want?’ You laugh sheepishly at the teacher and mumble, ‘What career? Which course do they offer at the university?’ Your teacher also laughs. You take it as a joke but it is a serious problem. We lack exposure. Most of the time, the career we always pursue is what is shoved our way and not what we honestly desired for. It is like going into a hotel with a one-item menu. You are starving and there are no alternatives. Unaware that there can be other better meals, you munch your way to sustenance, not satisfaction.
So are our career choices. At the earliest opportunity, I would wish to say that there is no better career than the other. I will not underrate one and exalt the other. I will not even attempt to draw distinctions between careers. To do so will be like saying, ‘You are a watchman? God save you. But I thought you were better off being somebody else than a watchman!’ First, I would have insulted all the diligent watchmen who sacrifice their sleep to protect life and property from vandalism. Secondly, watchmen will squirm inside their houses and wonder why they had to be lesser human beings. Thirdly, nobody will like to be a watchman, that is if I am lucky my throat is not torn.
Every career is noble. That is the premise we have to work on. Without a teacher, there is no engineer, doctor or lawyer. Without a farmer, there’s hunger. Without a policeman, there’s chaos. We need each other. I understand that a society is like rainbow. Its hue is magnificent due to its different colours. Imagine of a society without a priest or a sheikh for instance. Imagine of a society without a doctor or a nurse. Now imagine of a society where everyone was a computer wizard. All of them know about the computer gimmicks. When the computers are damaged, the owner repairs them. There will be no computer teachers, web designers, technicians and so on. The society will be one heap of a dull lot. It will be a tragic society.
Back to the chap who grows up behind the hill. His teachers have told him that if he works hard, he will live a comfortable life. He does not disappoint. He is the best student in the whole district. He doesn’t know what a comfortable life is. He works hard because that’s what he’s been told. He has no sufficient a reason to burn the midnight oil. He’s slept on hide, he’s eaten wild vegetables and his hobbies have been killing the most rats in a day. He has never been to a rich person’s apartment. The best he has got from our 8-4-4 system was a Geography field trip to Menengai crater. Even for that he felt cheated because it was like the hill in his backyard. So our chap finds himself in the university. He suffers the culture shock. In the village, you are told what to do. In the city, you do what you want to do. It is very tricky for our chap. For a semester, he’s mesmerized by the city life that he can’t concentrate. He uses the first month on how to cross the busy town with all the speedy cars and honks. He spends the first three weeks entering wrong lecture halls and being laughed at. He bears the burden of learning what finje, rwabe, tenje and karau mean in city slang. A colleague tells him that he’s doing chemical engineering. He wonders what engineering chemicals need. May be she is complicating it so he guesses that it must be an advanced form of titration. Why use big words when you can do it easily with simple ones? It is an honest question and he asks it. The lady laughs and asks which backyard of nowhere he comes from. He bottles up and curses his parents for being brought up from where they were brought up. The chap hears of double English and double Mathematics and breaks into a sweat. ‘Are the people doing these courses human beings like me?’ he wonders. It is a Wonderland. Another says he’s doing chemotherapy. He’s heard of physiotherapy. He’s now frustrated. ‘By the bald head of Loitabela, how many therapies are there?’ he throws his arms in disgust. It is only when he came to Nairobi that he knew who a stockbroker and a geologist is.
The chap’s world spins. He is not a peaceful man. Could he have been an actuarial scientist? An engineer? A stockbroker? An architect? A chemotherapist? …Or may be a graphic designer? Why not a pilot? What about doing Bcom? Social science may be?...Wait, why not a software engineer or a journalist or even an air hostess?..the list is endless.
The chap is told to look around his village. He’s told, ‘By the snuff bottle of your grandfather, how can you be an architect? Whose houses can you design when everywhere from Kacheliba to Kiwawa they are only huts?’ He’s told there’s no market for the job in the village. Which is right: there’s no market in the village. Then I propose new courses be introduced in our universities. Managing The Trends of Droughts in ASAL Areas. Understanding the Patterns of Dagoretti and Bumala Cattle Selling Points. Kokwo Analysis: How to Solve Village Disputes Under a Tree. Practical Mining. Pokot Translation Course. From Kadam with Miraa and Lots of Cash. Why not? The market will be there after all droughts, sale of cattle, village tribunals and mineral sites. Our young men and women will be absorbed in gainful employment, not some will-push-down-your-throat kind of courses. Right? Wrong!
Let’s go back to our chap. The chap has been fascinated by science all along since primary. Geography impressed him especially the topics on forestry and vegetation. Different types of trees like mahogany, elgon teak and others made him excited with delight. For two semesters, he thinks about having another course. It is a tedious exercise and it takes months before he settles for science. After all, how about somebody asking him what he’s doing in the university and the chap answers with all the time in the world, ‘Wood S-C-I-E-N-C-E’. The educated elites in the village are up in arms. They protest. It is now a village issue. The chap explains, ‘You see those trees behind our hill? That’s my territory in the university. Give me four years and I will tell you all you need to know about them. And by the way, it’s SCIENCE and not your small little courses that you talk about!’
Well, I rest my case.
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