Chapter 4 – Lost runs
Lost first time
Monday is usually a run day. And this was yet another Monday and a run was surely on the cards. I changed to my run gear by 4.00pm, intending to do a run from five o’clock. The music was already loud, very loud, from the Fodder fest that was being held just outside our Paviljong 10 block. In fact, our parking lot had already been cordoned off, to accommodate the party benches and food trucks. The football field adjacent to our block had also already been sealed off and already adorned with many white tents. From afar we could see the bright lights and strobes dancing over on the stage. However, it kept raining. Nonetheless, the revelers kept walking around and partying about.
I had been waiting for around an hour in readiness for the run. When I went to check out the weather at five, it was still raining, and my run would not be possible. I was therefore stuck with my run gear and no run to show for it. Two attempts later would yield the same ‘rain is too much’ result, forcing me back to the room. Nonetheless, the time finally came for me to get out of the block, rain or no rain, and start running around. I did not know much about the routes. I was relying on what I had mapped on Google and hoping that I could recall the same map, since it was not possible to print and carry a map, nor would I have internet connectivity to view a live map.
I started my two timing gadgets at 6.00pm. The wristwatch gave me an ‘accelo error’, while Endomondo on the phone indicated a GPS signal error. It did not matter. Running was a must. It was drizzling, but it did not matter. Running was a must.
I left Paviljong 10 and hit the tarmac just next to it, turning left and heading to the general direction of Kiwi. I intended to explore some route that should circle the campus on a 8km radius. The pain of thousands of needles piercing the skin hit me when I started off my run. It was cold and chilly. It was painfully windy over short spells that persisted over time. I persevered through it. I even thought of calling off the run but it was too late. I was already rolling downhill on the route we had walked on the previous day. I would soon just persevere the pain of the cold and keep going.
I would soon turn another left at the crossroad, go uphill slightly before crossing yet another road with Oljedirektoratet on my left and Innovasjonspark Stavanger on my right across the road. Though the vehicles were quite few, the few of the few that I encountered actually stopped for me whenever I was crossing the road at a marked pedestrian crossing. One even had to stop while I was about ten meters from the crossing, and waited for me to reach that crossing and cross over, before it went along. That was a first.
I kept going. The drizzle kept going. I then got to a forested area just after the parking of Oljedirektoratet. I saw some sort of barrier and did not know whether I was allowed to pass through or not. There was a signage in Norwegian. I was unable to read it. To err on the side of caution, I avoided that gate and instead turned into the footpath to my left that headed into the forest, leaving the road to my right that had the barrier. The forest however seemed too thick to navigate, though it was runnable. I felt more unsure and unsafe. What if one of the signs was that no one should get into the forest? I asked myself as I turned back, hardly one hundred metres into the wood. I therefore had no choice but to run back to P-10 using same route that I had taken.
I was soon back to P-10, now on my left. I could have just turned left and got into the block. Then the idea to continue going along that road crossed my mind, and that is what I did. I kept going past P-10 and kept going towards the unknown. I was not very surprised to find myself having circled UiS and was now at the junction with Oljedirektoratet building on my left. The same building that I had encountered hardly ten minutes ago. It started drizzling. I had just ‘discovered’ that there was a route that goes round UiS.
That is when the idea to just circle round UiS came to mind. And, just like that, I run round and round the big UiS circle, managing to do four circuits around the campus. The Fodder party music become loud every time I passed by P-10 and faded away as I got far on my running route. When I stopped my timer at 7.05pm, it was still plain daylight. I only stopped because I was losing count on the number of circuits done. I am not a good at keeping tabs with number of rounds around a circuit, for any number greater than three. Finally, there I was, beaming with happiness for conquering my first cold, chilly, drizzling marathon that ended when it was still daylight. Even the phone app that had indicated a GPS error was able to somehow map my run, when I finally did a review and sync onto the computer.
Lost with the Nigerian
But the week would not have been complete if we had not met the Nigerian. Our trio of researchers were at the third-floor corridor of our principal working place, the very place that would define our life in UiS for the next 3 months. We had just finished the meeting with Ralph and Hellen, and were just appreciating the architecture of Kjolv Egelands Hus (KEH). We were relaxing on the corridor benches. Being at the very top of the three-story building, we had nothing but the sky above us – technically, the glass ceiling, which from my assessment was openable when need be. It is just then, from nowhere, that someone came to our direction and stretched a hand.
“I am Okafor,” he shook our hands in turn, “From Nigeria,” he did not need to say. His accent had already betrayed him, but he said anyway.
“Mutua, but call me Paul”
“Obonyo, but Eric is easier.”
“Barack, like Barack Obama,” I introduced.
“You mean!, Mr. President?,” he responded, excitedly.
He leaned on the table where we were seated. Two of us on one side. He faced the three of us and started.
“Welcome to this University, what do you do here? New students?”
We updated him on our mission. A short term stay for research.
“Good for you, Oh!, But I must tell you few things you must know.”
We were grateful for the free info from Oga Okafor, since he filled us in with quite a lot of ‘secrets’. He told us not to greet anybody, since this was considered impolite in the Norsk culture. People do not share seats. If you try to join in on a seat, then you would see the occupant already there just stand up and leave.
“When I saw you seated together, I knew you not know nutin abot this korcha, I beg. I knew you not know the korcha here.”
He told us that the cost of living was high and that we should brace for a shock once we start shopping. He advised us to shop around for places where we can get good prices, and buy provisions in bulk. He told us that there was an African market somewhere, where we could get stuff at relatively cheaper price.
“But shop around and buy bulk, I say buy bulk, Oh!. That the only way you survive here. Otherwise, you don survive here. You don survive Oh!,” he paused to let it sink, then continued.
“Things like power, that be so expensive. So expensive, I beg. And remember, you can’t afford heating in winter. Winter be cold, but use power and cost it go high, Oh!. High I tell you. No survive.”
We thought that we had heard it all.
“Before I forget. Let me tell you another trick,” he re-adjusted his hands on the table. Looked left to see our two faces, then right to see Paul’s face, “I beg, do not shop while converting Kroner to your currency. Just shop and pay. If you convert to your currency. You go feel bad, I beg. You go see things so expensive. You go no buy. You go no buy at all, if you convert. Just buy and go.”
He told about how it is virtually impossible to get medical treatment. He said that you cannot get medicine from a chemist without a certified prescription from a doc. And you ain’t getting one unless all tests have been done and you are confirmed to need drugs. He told us of an episode where he went to hospital after coming from Naija, knowing that he surely had malaria. However, he was not treated.
They told him, “They say here we have no mosquito. We do not have malaria here. We go not give you medicine. We go run tests. They go run many tests, I beg. I feel paid but they go give me no medicine. No medicine, Oh! I just go home and shiver and just get well on my own. Don’t go get sick here. Just pray you be well.”
“An ana tin, lon di longej*. If you go stay for long, you must lon di longej. Otherwise, they go say sometin, and you go wonder, I beg, what they go say now? Oh!.”
And just as soon as he had arrived, he was already off with a casual goodbye, “I must go meet my supervisor for final Masters thesis. I go finish my Masters soon. See you around.”
*And another thing, learn the language
That Oga was God-send. He gave us quite some valuable tips. He confirmed our suspicion on some things that we were observing, assuming that they were accidental, yet they were that way actually by design.
My second workday was Tuesday, August 13, 2019. The three of us had agreed to go to our principal working place at KEH at nine. We were just to start working on our projects by refining the existing writeups as we awaiting the arrival of the assigned supervisors, expected for the following week. I stayed at our room in CS department for the whole morning, upto four, but without getting much work done anyway. I was unlucky that my computer had decided to fail on this day of all the days. My final project version was not opening up at all. Coincidentally, this is the very version that I had failed to backup the previous day.
I am usually careful to backup the latest version on email, but not this time. The Word document just ‘refused’ to open. And what is this obsession of MS with error codes? Getting a message that the document cannot open due to error code 0X8007016A does not make any sense at all. How is a human being supposed to decipher this error? I hate MS. I hate error codes. I hate the person who thought that it was a good idea to error code on people. Would it not just be plain simple to give the error in human readable directly? Or, that would be so much work! Are computers made for people or people are for computers?
I left the PG students room frustrated, as we did another walk to Kiwi with my two colleagues. I was set back some $7 for a few onions, carrots and a sachet of seasoning. This shopping would ‘somehow’ be transformed into dinner. A cabbage head costed $4 and I did not buy… yet. The time would come for that, but not now, when I am still thinking of prices by converting Kroner to KES in all my transactions.
Lost in Kenyan clashes
Back to PH10 and we would get visitors in our kitchen. Our kitchen has a six-seater table in the middle of these once two-rooms now combined into one by the removal of the mid partition and one door. These visitors were two of our fellow country people from the MSc group, Tonny and Kim. It was just time for chit chat and talking about all manner of things. We talked from five to almost eight. It was still so bright by that time when dinner was made. I declined, “I don’t take dinner at daytime,” I reminded the four.
We talked the education system in Kenya vis-à-vis here. We talked some religion. We talked what had brought us here. We talked the freshers party that we had missed, despite it being on our very front door.
“I missed this for good reason”, Tonny would say, “My ATM card was not yet working, yet the entry was three hundred and fifty Kroners. And that was before food and drinks.”
The very party that was supposed to be ‘free entry’, was surely too good to be true.
“At least you people expect something in your accounts tomorrow,” Paul interjected, “The three of us have nothing until next week. Our papers are still being processed.”
“How long are you here,” I would ask at some point.
“Until December 20,” Kim responded.
“You will surely enjoy the winter… in total,” I reminded him.
“Can’t wait,” he tried, “Actually, I am scared.”
It was inevitable that we would talk politics. And I wish we had not, since for the first time I got emotionally affected by what was discussed. First time. Hope it shall not repeat…..
Reader discretion is advised for the following part of the story. Please do not read if you cannot handle.
Tonny told us about the 2007 political clashes that followed the national elections in Kenya. He confirmed that he was in Naivasha town and he witnessed it all. He described how he saw with his own eyes how people were being chopped like trees in the name of ‘cleaning outsiders’. What he described was too graphic to even write about. He said that some few good Samaritans would hide ‘outsiders’ in their homes and provide them with disguises such as providing female religious dresses to male folks. He described how one of the people he knew has confronted such a ‘female’ and demanded that she removes the buibui to confirm that she was actually female.
Hell broke loose when he discovered that the disrobed person was not only a man, but also an outsider. He asked him to robe on his usual religious attire and led him out of the village, calling out villagers while dragging him by the robe, machete at hand. The two would disappear from the village. However, it did not take long before the badly mutilated body was found not far from the village. Tonny describes that particular incident as bloody and gruesome.
He described how ‘outsiders’ were ambushed in their sleep on a Sunday, January 27, 2008. He was very specific about that date, since he still remembers that particular date today, as clearly is it was eleven years ago. The ‘outsiders’ were ambushed in their homes at night, while asleep and cut down with machetes. Their property was removed from the natives’ houses, since they did not want to burn their own infrastructure, but just the occupant’s property. The occupants’ property was all removed from houses and then thrown out in the open, for all passers-by to pick whatever they wanted. The remainder of the property was burnt down I heaps. Those who were not cut to death has a worse fate, since ‘outsiders’ who refused to come out of the houses were burnt alive while inside.
“That event changed me forever,” he reaffirmed, amidst total silence on the table.
This was the first time that I had heard a firsthand account from a witness of how the situation was. He did not have any kind words for the motherland in many of his stories thereafter. He described the top politicians as unworthy of even claiming to be leaders. He even vowed that he was not going to vote in any election ever. I surely could feel the change in him.
“The media did a good job in painting this episode as nothing that serious,” I found myself commenting, mainly due to lack of anything to say, since the silence was now too loud. All were still in shock.
“Let me not even talk about the sexual assaults that was being done by the gangs. In plain sight, without any fear in the world. With total impunity!,” he started his narration once more.
He narrated another incident where a pregnant ‘outsider’, who was married to a native, was first sexually assaulted, then murdered. Her husband of many years, despite the children they had had together, would not say or do anything. He just stood there and let it happen.
He talked of so many other bloody scenes. He told us of how heads that had been decapitated were being hanged on lampposts along the streets and trophy over conquest over ‘outsiders’. It was like an eerie horror movie. A bad dream. A nightmare, only that this was reality, with five people around the table.
“Let no one cheat you people,” he concluded, as he stood up ready to move back to his wing on the same floor, “There is no victory in war!”
