The Winds of Change

After the graduation hullabaloo was over, just like many other graduates you were faced with the hardest challenge of finding employment. You were not lucky enough to secure one while still in campus. Luck hates you, she always has and you have evidence to show that. But other than that we all know how the Kenyan job market is. It’s just dreadful, one application letter after the other and the outcome is usual- no reply, nothing but disturbingly deafening silence sometimes broken by two sentence regret letter. You turned to the world’s most illustrious aide and information spring, Google and searched- ‘how to write an application letter’, ‘How to write good curriculum vitae’: Google brought you a hoard of samples and you clicked on the one written by an Economic professor from Harvard. ‘This must be the trump card’, you thought and resolved to read the document with the keenness of an evangelist. Exhilaration was running in your veins and you were a little over psyched that you made short notes and swore to emulate the foreign style, but no. It was not enough. The application with all its imported elements ended up in a shredder at the corner of an office or in a cold spam box waiting to be shoved to oblivion. Disappointment stack up as silence reigned as if you never even attempted to apply for the job.

Your tunnel seemed to grow darker with every rising sun; so your dad went to his phone, and began recalling his old contacts and networks that he envisaged could elucidate your rather bleak situation. It was hard to recall all of them; after all it had been a long time since he last contacted them. Notwithstanding the setback, he found a couple and proceeded to call them hoping to help you get a job or just about anything of value to show for the degree you sweat for for four years or more. Some of the contacts excavated from the dusty phone book archives were kind enough to pick his incessant phone calls. They promised to get back to him the moment an opportunity would surface. Their words however were like a politician’s promises; rife with award-winning promises, mouth whetting pledges, that turn out to be nothing but words. Void words whose ink inevitably fades as time goes by; with every passing second they mean less, becoming nothing more than nouns, adverbs, conjunctions, syllables and adjectives meticulously put together to be heard and never executed. Like a seed put to the ground and cover with condemnation by the sower to never grow!

Some of these contacts somehow left you and your father hopeful. They managed to shine a flicker of light in your rather dark tunnel. But it was just an illusory flicker. And soon, maybe four weeks down the line, when you made a follow up call, four missed calls later, it dawned on the two of you that nothing was happening. Nothing nothing at all. And just like that, you were back where you started.

What was left of your trust in networks and godfathers was eroded. For you they were just wanna be prophets who forever prophesied of an imminent apocalypse year in year out. And year in year out no apocalypse was in sight. You now believed nothing good and most importantly true left their mouths. Nothing worth a toast could out of godfathers unless of course something came out of you first. You know like few thousands…from you to them! And you had evidence! Your friend Peter and your ex-girlfriend (who left you because you were becoming a church mouse and she is not a fervent worshipper) got their jobs through such means. Unfortunately papa has never believed in paying for your education and later having to pay- *bribe* for your employment. There are a lot of things he does not believe in and you are okay with them: But this particular one annoyed you and you wished you could slap some sense into him but you wouldn’t dare, he is the only person on earth who can house and feed you without asking for a fee.

Job application became your daily job. You frequented the cyber cafés and dug into job sites and applied for those jobs like you life banked on them- although to be fair they almost did, to a good extent depend on them. Your life was at a place you didn’t like, you needed cash to give you the confidence you needed to bounce back to hanging out with Peter and the crew and getting a hot girlfriend who you hoped would burn your ex-girlfriend by the heat she would be radiating. In between all that, you became an ardent church goer. The one thing you loved about the church is it unfailingly resonated with hope and you needed it. Every Sunday the preacher interceded for; the sick, the heart broken and most important to you the job seekers- “Wanaotafuta kazi inueni mikono tuombe pamoja, Mungu afungue milango”, these words struck a chord with you and you would get emotional and lift your hands up high, as if you were keen to ensure your hands got into contact with the blessings first as they flowed from heaven. Sometimes hope would be elusive like peace in South Sudan, and it appeared as though the dark journey would never end. You would sulk for a few hours then get back to steel character. Because giving up was not even close to being a plausible option. Every job application came rich with expectation that eventually died like a dinner candle in a windy balcony.

And then one day, while you were asleep; heaven was a beehive of activities as God ordered angel Michael to come down and open your doors- “My child has cried for far too long Michael, go help him” God commanded. But you were just there, unaware that the heavens were working out something for you. When Michael came down, he went straight to the boardroom, right there where two men in dark suits and red ties and two women in short tight skirts sat, twirling on their gigantic leather seats, sipping their tea as they mulled over who to shortlist for an interview. There were four slots,…well actually two because the manager had sold one and the Human Resource officer another; the money had already exchanged hands in a bar. So two slots needed to be filled. The lady wearing sexy glasses picked your letter from a hoard of application letters. Michael was in the room so nobody objected. They went through your application and boy they loved your presentation (Oh!! Bless you Harvard professor). The devil peered through the curtains (he was on a mission too!) and attempted to corrupt the mind of the fat guy who sat at the window, but Michael was way ahead of him. He puckered his lips and gently blew air on satan, he fell down like a sucker! Head first and is unconscious for the next two hours. By the time he was up, the deal was done and you had been selected. Michael was on his way to help another brother and sister on his to do list and the recruiting officers were drinking ridiculously overpriced coffee at Java.

Seven days later, you still had no idea that God had answered your prayers; but you had grown to become a fervent Christian so you had faith. Even though there were high chances it was much smaller than a mustard seed, it still counted for something.

One day as you went about your daily chores, dusting off the couches while soft music played from the radio, your phone rang.

A new number was calling!

‘Could it be my ex calling in a different number to reckon that she has come to her elusive senses and admit she couldn’t live without you?’, you thought.

“Halo am I talking to Abednego Musembi?”

The English was so good, the voice so well ironed. No it couldn’t be her no chance in hot hell for one simple reason; her English was so bad. So bad that even if the Queen of England donated her blood and tongue to her, nothing much would happen; she would still put ‘H’ where it did not belong and pluck it from its rightful place- (haddress to mean address hair to mean air). Her Kao accent could not be fixed. You had tried, and every attempt fizzled out into oblivion like a suppressed fart

***

In various aspects, my story is just like yours… save from few aspects here and there.

You see, for the longest time possible, I desired something fresh in my life; new opportunities and challenges too. Daily, my heart bled for that. Sometimes I was optimistic and others I wasn’t. What I was waiting for took long to arrive but it finally did couple of weeks ago when I was lucky to be called in for an interview and knocked its socks off! Now on my hands I have new responsibilities since my employer expects me to deliver. Whether my new job met my expectations or not is a chalk and cheese story for another day.

I will now be writing proposals- lots of them and once in a while wear a gas mask (I’ll explain later the use of the mask). I will also be around sometimes annoying colleagues, and I will stare at a computer for the better part of the day.

The winds of change are always blowing and they have blown past me, they have brushed against my schedule, my time, and I have chosen to rise to the occasion. And you know what they say (who? I don’t know who?)- That the only thing that is surely permanent is change. This is quite true, change is the only thing that happens and can’t be stopped. The first thing in my life to be affected was my sleeping schedule. Today I woke up at 4am. There before, I used to go to bed at 5am; that is after a long quiet night of writing. Now my former bed time has become my time to rise. No longer will I spend my entire day around my fictional stories, words and ink (at least not full time).

But hey! this is not a speech to tell you I’m writing my final story. In fact I think when one day I will arrive in heaven, God in his audit of my life will be very keen on what I did with this amazing gift he has allowed me to have. This gift is the third nerve center in my life, yeah after God and my heart. So ain’t no way I’m going to turn my back on it: Especially not now that my relationship with you is starting to bud.

The winds have now passed, and am here to write, to make you laugh, maybe cry a little, to inspire you, to spark a conversation, until I draw my last fleeting breathe.  

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