Sabina Joy

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I was woken up by loud knocks on my door a few minutes to 6am. I hurriedly washed my face and slithered into my favorite black corduroy trouser, a brown oversize t-shirt, colour matched with my brown Hanson kicks.

After a heavy breakfast of two huge sweet potatoes and tea, I grabbed my small suitcase that I had packed the previous night. Mzee-One (Dad) escorted me to Linkurungu where I boarded the famous Ken Silver to Nairobi Cirri.

Although I had been in the big city thrice before, two of which were on transit to other destinations, this was arguably my maiden entry into the place of cool waters. The excitement was out of this world. We touched down at Tea Room International Airport some minutes past 3pm. Mzee-One had sent me to the city like a luggage (Didn’t know anyone/anywhere), and so I had to make calls announcing that I had landed so I would get picked up. I was informed that whoever was to pick me was on his way. I took a seat in Terminal 1 – International Arrivals lounge (Read, Ken-Silver Booking Office) and waited patiently. After an hour or so of waiting, a middle aged tall man approached me and asked, “Wewe ndio Adrian?” “Naam” I answered. “Mimi naitwa Cossovo nimetumwa kukuchukua” He said. “Nifuate” He added.

He grabbed my suitcase and started making huge steps (Alikanyanga kubwa-kubwa) without looking back. I tried keeping up with him in vain. There were a lot of people on the streets. Women selling tomatoes, avocadoes, clothes, mayai mboiro and all sorts of things. I got lost for a minute not knowing where Cossovo had disappeared to before he reappeared, grabbed my hand by the wrist and shouted, “Tembea haraka murume, hii ni Nairobi” 

We arrived at Ambassadour bus terminus where we were to board Citi Hoppa number 24 to Karen. By this time I was so pressed and had no idea how to tell this stranger that I had just met. Mungu naye ni nani! He was pressed too, “Shika hii bag nijisaidie hapa nikuje” He requested. “Hata mimi nimekazwa” I said. He got into the bus, placed the bag on a seat and instructed the conductor who was busy yelling, “Langata! Bomas! Hardy! Karen!” to check on it. 

He pointed into an entrance with the words “Sabina Joy” printed in a signboard hanging by the entrance. I followed him into a dark staircase leading to God knows where. Skimpily dressed girls lined the walls of the staircase leading to wherever it is we were headed to whispering in low tones things I did not care to hear. We made it to the second or third floor, took a dark corridor past a bar full of revelers into a filthy, smelly urinal. I emptied my bladder and as I turned to make my way out I was accosted by a battery of girls pulling me left, right and center hissing in my ears like rattled snakes. Thank heavens Cossovo came out seconds after myself and shouted at the girls before they let me go. (I will tell you someday how I narrated this story to my buddies and they requested that I take them for a ‘field study’).

We embarked on our maiden safari to Karengata, and as if gods had conspired against me, the bus we were in hit a small car and our safari was curtailed for some time. Hunger and thirst were almost killing me at this time and there was no shop in the vicinity. The accident occurred in Uhuru Highway right outside Toyota Kenya. After a while another Hoppa came to our rescue and we finally arrived at Apostles of Jesus Youth Technical Institute (AJYTI) Karen. During our days, after graduating from high school, it was fashionable to enroll for computer courses as you waited to join college. As fate would have it, AJYTI hosted me for this very purpose.

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While at AJYTI, I met incredible people. Danielle Sakayian (Masai) is one of them, a classmate and a friend. Our classes ran from 8am to 1pm. Dan, our teacher, would however give us beginners to teach in the afternoon or help him in the school cyber café. I so much liked helping in the cyber because besides surfing and admiring/stalking girls who frequented the cyber, I would get a few coins for Keg in Mama Blackies or The Yard at Kenol in the evening. Through the networking program that managed the cyber, one would grab a screen of another computer being used by a client using the admin computer and see what he/she is doing. Through this, I would get the names one is using on Facebook or yahoo messager, send a request, get accepted (No one rejected requests back then) and start the chat right away without the person knowing that you were seated right across them. Working in the cyber gave us privileges that other students did not have. For you to understand this I need to paint for you a picture of what AJYTI was like.  

Besides AJYTI being an Institute that offered technical courses, there are multiple other things that it was/is home to, among them; an all girl’s hostel that housed about 30 girls from Catholic University, Tangaza College, Marist and JKUAT – Karen. In the compound there was also a Cafeteria that was open to public besides being the kitchen where girls from the hostel took their meals. There was another section that housed priests, complete with a kitchen and a dining hall that was famously referred to as a ‘Refectory’. At the extreme end of the compound there was a hall that was subdivided inside to create temporary small wooden cubicles. These tiny cubicles were each fitted with a double decker high school-like metal beds and housed male teachers and other support staff in the Institute. 

During my first few days in AJYTI, I stayed in the dormitory together with other boys who were taking technical courses. It was only Masai and myself who were taking computer studies and so we felt out of place, other computer students were day scholars. Luckily for us, we managed to get a vacant cube that we occupied amid resistance from some staff. This cube became our house till we cleared our studies. Staying in the same place with the staff made us become close to most of them. 

Stay around for fascinating escapades from “Babylon” as one teacher, Mr. Matandi referred AJYTI as.