A day in the life of…
1) a “starving” student:
Alarm clock blares the latest indie hit, snooze button, back into dreams for fifteen precious minutes. 8am groggily lifts you up, push the warm comforter aside, stretch, feet onto soft carpet. Find the bathroom with eyes half-shut, pajamas to the floor, steaming shower awaits. Shampoo, conditioner, body scrub, lather, rinse, repeat. Either a quick shave and some hair gel or a lengthy adventure with the blow dryer, hair straightener, concealer, foundation, mascara. Your preferred brand of coffee into the mug, perhaps its fair trade, perhaps not. Feeling like breakfast? Toast and fruit? Cereal? Bagel or eggs? Toaster, microwave, fridge, running water, dishwasher, and its time to decide what to wear. In front of your closet; which pants? Which shirt? Too many choices, not enough at the same time, need to do some summer shopping. Must remember to buy a new belt after class. Going to be late, no time for e-mail check. Into the car, back out the driveway. $5 for parking, what a rip-off. Class is ogling the good-looking Prof, chatting about the latest blockbuster, some note-taking. Return eight hours later, steaming take-out in hand. The usual crew is coming over for drinks and the final episode of the show everyone is talking about. Your friends are supplying the liquor because your grandparents blessed you with a 60” flat screen last Christmas. A text message says your friends are en route, your mom calls to ensure the money she deposited in your account went towards “necessities”. You briefly ponder whether you share your mother’s definition of “necessity”. Your hair appointment last week because summer means blonde, or that new ipod because your gym membership would go to waste if you lacked motivational tunes. Friends arrive, beers are consumed. More beers are consumed. The cheap brand because, hey, you’re starving students. Someone makes a Tim Hortons run, someone makes a crack about cracking open a book. You retort with an anecdote about 3am paper-writing and fetching a decent mark for most of them. Your student loan pays regardless of marks anyway, right?
Fall into bed tipsy, slightly bloated from the greasy eats. A smile curls your lips when that special someone sends you a not-so-subtle text. Drift off into dreams of summer; of beaches and bbq’s, of swimming and drinking and soaking up the sun. Guilt pangs for a moment over your lack of concentration on school, but you’re young and life is good, and isn’t it all about having fun and enjoying life anyways?
2) a starving student:
The sun rumbles awake somewhere below the hills. Warmth of the morning, twittering of birds alerts you to 6am, school begins in an hour. Untuck the mosquito net, feet into rubber sandals; the cement floor too cold, too dirty. Down to the well, 20 litre yellow jerry can in hand. 407 steps down to the pipe spewing toffee-coloured water. 407 steps back. Home is a two-room brick abode; you consider yourself lucky to share the one room your family rents with only your mother and young brother. The renters in the next room are seven in total. The well water becomes your shower water, the jerry can and a four-walled structure behind the house a shower. Red mud collects at your feet as you splash your body with the frigid water and pray next week you’ll find enough money for soap. Breakfast is tea; boil water on a charcoal stove outside, pound ginger to flavor the water. While the water boils apply black polish to your shoes, iron your pants and dress shirt, the only ones you own. Imagine as you iron having several outfits to choose from every day. Pray no one notices your repetitive ensemble. If you’re late for school they refuse you lunch break or, depending on the teacher, you receive the cane. The delicate bruising on your left wrist reminds you to hurry. Twenty minute walk to school pales in comparison to some of your friends’ hour-long treks. The hours before lunch are a struggle through lectures in a language other than your mother-tongue. You grew up speaking Luganda but all schooling takes place in English. You continue what will be a day-long struggle against your rumbling stomach. By late afternoon you are weak with hunger and barely notice today’s lunch of mashed potatoes and beans is the same they’ve offered everyday since school began. You won’t eat again until 10pm. Class ends at 5pm, just when the rain begins. Ten minutes into the walk home you are drowned, teeth chattering, desperately, protectively clutching school books to your chest.
You find your brother at home, idle. He was chased from school for unpaid school fees. You tell him not to worry, that your mother will find a way to pay. Tell him to chop green pepper and tomato for the evening’s dinner while you peel Irish potatoes, heat oil over the charcoal stove. Electricity is off, second day in a row, a sole candle flickers shadows on the walls. Damp shirt clings to your skin but laundry day is Saturday and today is Thursday and you’ve never even seen a drying-machine. A sweater is a luxury and your mother wore yours to work, a roadside stand selling roasted corn. You help your brother revise his books till dinner is ready and your mother is home and you are all eating slowly, savoring. You share the day’s stories and your mother announces she made a little extra today. Your brother will have enough for school fees this term it seems. Next term is a worry better left until next term. After dinner everyone helps rearrange the room for sleeping. A foam mat placed on the floor, two blankets for mother and brother. You take none, ensuring the cold midnight air will wake you for studying. You’ll be writing your exams in three weeks time and need top marks for any hope of a scholarship towards continuing studies. Before drifting off to sleep you pray your family will have enough to survive; enough for food, for rent, for school fees. Then you pray for the frivolous things, for sunshine on Saturday so your clothes dry, for safe journeys to school, for extra money to visit your deceased father’s family in the village, for your pen’s ink to last the whole term.
~Nicole
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