5 years in the School of Nursing, years of great drama years of pure madness, years of struggle, hustle and bustle. We joined this noble college as the cream
de la cream, the best of the best, the top of the society. They called us
‘daktari’ but I wish they knew what we go through to get to this level where we are now? It
all started with a new life, a new set of people. I came to the city, I, a
village ambassador, with me I carried a sack of maize, a smaller sack of beans
and of cause a bag of potatoes. Life in
Nairobi is expensive they said. On that day my parents sent me to the city,
they rallied a facial expression of over astonishment with exceeding excitement
and robust of energy comparing not to the tranquility of the swaying banana
leaves. Mum said, this is from God, by God and of God. The whole village
organized a send off ceremony, a ceremony befitting a delegate, a
representative of the village in the university, the village hero. Anyway, to
cut the long story short, we joined the university and that is where the rain started
beating us. What happened? You really want to know?
First it was the admission day, confusion was palpable in the air. I met people from everywhere, speaking all languages, from all walks of life as they say. It was the first time I was meeting people who talked in languages I did no understand. We were given orientation, an orientation befitting a confused first year. What was funny was that we were oriented by so many groups of people who were telling us many different things at the same time and yet expecting us to understand all of it. What was meant to give us direction in our new home turned out to be even a greater source of confusion. Fortunately, we went through this and came out alive. 
The classes started, and first it was anatomy. Imagine being taken trough benches filled with cadavers and you are told you will be with them for the next 44 weeks! We had mixed reactions, but we came out alive. I remember this professor who really harassed us, first he asked me, where the
posterior nucal line was, where the hell did I know this Prof? Then he asked about the brachial plexus, which to me sounded like breki ya lexus...poor boy. Prof looked at me and said sympathetically, "now let me
tell you something, common things occur commonly and that is why when you see a
spotted animal outside the anatomy lab, it is most likely to be a cat and not a
leopard." Then he asks another lady the number of cervical vertebra in the neck of a human being, which she surprisingly answers correctly only to be asked the number of cervical vertebra are in a giraffe...really Prof!
The classes started, and first it was anatomy. Imagine being taken trough benches filled with cadavers and you are told you will be with them for the next 44 weeks! We had mixed reactions, but we came out alive. I remember this professor who really harassed us, first he asked me, where the
posterior nucal line was, where the hell did I know this Prof? Then he asked about the brachial plexus, which to me sounded like breki ya lexus...poor boy. Prof looked at me and said sympathetically, "now let me
tell you something, common things occur commonly and that is why when you see a
spotted animal outside the anatomy lab, it is most likely to be a cat and not a
leopard." Then he asks another lady the number of cervical vertebra in the neck of a human being, which she surprisingly answers correctly only to be asked the number of cervical vertebra are in a giraffe...really Prof!
The program and schedules were hectic; the fat egos of once
known academic giants were depleted. All over sudden, it was possible to score
low marks, marks that were of equivalence to Kenya shillings that could not
purchase half a loaf, marks that were below sea level. The tide had changed and
the waves were now rolling just to the bare minimum. The year ended, the
results came and we had passed, no, we had satisfied that board of examiners. I
know we only had a fifty, but do I say. Then we got to the second year, the worst year of my academic life. First I just wonder why we had to stay in Main campus and have our classes in KNH. We fought each morning for the school bus. Just imagine a 62 seatter bus currying over 200 students...this bus was never full until it was full. Imagine waking up at 7:28AM and the bus is leaving at 7:30...but funny enough within 2 minutes we were able to take breakfast, take a shower, clean up yourself and tidy up the room and catch the bus. We performed miracles I tell you. The second year was worse than the whole of primary and secondary school combined. imagine doing pharmacology, where you are expected to know 10,000 plus drugs with their generic and trade names, their history, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, adverse effects, drug interactions and their contraindications. And if you thought it was a joke, they would bring all this in an exam. Then Microbiology...where on earth did microorganisms come from? I remember the spot exam, the horror movie series of one minute episode...wah!, we came out alive.
In 3rd year, we had learnt to survive, we
developed some thick skin. We had deepened friendship and enjoyed fellowship.
Some of us started enjoying some essential needs and others started having a
friend, note, not any other friend, but that one special friend, that single
one. In medical schools, we do zero grazing they said. People started coming to
class in pairs. Third year and fourth year were not so much drama compared to second year. one thing that made us blow up our heads in the fourth year was this research thing...who said we must do research who? but eventually survived and came out alive. we are now shedding tears of joy, after successfully satisfying a series of 4 boards of examiners, of 44 weeks episode. the 8-4-4 has come to an end. what next now?
