The College Experience: Part 2
By: Mulenga Mukonda
Tags: Academia, College Life

The College Experience: Part 2

Courtesy of ZITHS

The second half of the Marathon; And the Marathon continues…

We are still in the midst of a global pandemic. No physical classes just online. Still the old same thing!

Sometime after the commencement of the second semester, the government announces the official reopening of higher learning institutions. I clearly remember the date, it was on the 28th, September. This is sorely because I was anxiously waiting and looking forward as to when physical classes would resume and do away with the “boring” e-learning lessons. Honestly, online classes didn’t do for me. They just never worked out in other words.

We were back in school after some good Six to Seven months. It was an exciting period. Relieved from the e-learning stress and getting back into physical contact with fellow mates and in the physical classroom with the lecturer standing in front of the white board and a marker between the thumb and the index finger.

Things were slowly but surely getting back to normal in a gradual process. We were adapting to the “new normal” of things. Everything was just going on well until the last minute, the examination period.

In my entire life and among all the exams I’ve ever written, this was the worst exam experience I’ve ever been in. Even as I pen this down, it’s hard for me to reminisce on the events that recently happened during the examination period.

Imagine this scenario, you just wrote your first two papers and everything seems to be going on just fine. You write your third paper and feel relieved because you are half way to the finish line. At this point, you’ve really got to put in some extra work and effort because the remaining papers are quite challenging than the ones you just wrote. Suddenly, you receive bad and disheartening news from your fellow classmate that a fellow friend has been incarcerated and is behind bars. This is around 21 o’clock.

How would this make you feel and what would be your reaction?

I felt traumatized and I was shaking. I couldn’t hold my phone and type properly because my hands were shaking. I just said “goodnight” because I felt too emotional and I just couldn’t be online at that particular time after hearing the traumatic thing that had just happened. It was pretty much a shock!

Fooling myself, I thought I was going to sleep, there and then, so as to escape the reality a little bit but reality couldn’t just let me. Like how could I truly fall asleep knowing well that a friend is in police custody? A female for that matter! I for one have not seen my Mum shade tears in a single bit. And hearing the story about how the girls’ Mum shade tears was so heartbreaking! Just picture your queen and hero on ground zero because someone acted stupidly! I couldn’t get my thoughts straight and clear. The least I could do was pray for her.

Up to date, I still struggle to get the full and bigger picture of everything that the young lady went through. It’s so hard. I mean, we ain’t picturing a male but a female(young lady) who is locked up behind the cells with no food to eat! That’s how cold the world can be at times!

The next morning, I reported for school to write my Business Accounting paper and the only emotions I could read on peoples faces were the sadness, the pain and the anguish that they felt deep in their hearts for the injustices our fellow and dear student was facing. And seeing a certain girl shade and wipe her tears out really made me want to cry. It was such an emotional episode. But thank God, she was released later that day in the afternoon though she couldn’t be allowed to sit for the next exams for reasons we don’t know.

Tay, a dear friend and fellow classmate is one of the first year students who’s had to face a traumatic episode at a tender and early stage of life. Experiencing the coldness and the rough side of the world just in her first year in College. It has been a tough and rough journey for her.

Three years ago, Chef 187 put out one of the most relevant line of this decade and the ones yet to come, and at this point in time, it hit me so hard like a blow on my right jaw! He snapped!

“If Judas would kiss Yesu in betrayal, bushe abacensele ebanensu? Limbi tebo…”

The stirring thing is, even though she’s had to go through all this mess and felt the cold and dark side of the world, she keeps and stays shining like the shooting star in the dark. She is the diamond that was buried in the dirty but kept its glow!