I owe the family, I owe the community, I owe myself: Were on Graduating

This is a story shared by Were on what he has been going through years after completing his studies from Moi University. The story first appeared on his Facebook wall Were wa’Shitseswa

If ‪‎Moi University‬ won’t give me my papers, I swear, I am already in any wave that will promise to put food on my small table. You have terrorised me enough, anyway. You’ve ripped off me the things I’d have feared to lose. Now Al Shabaab and Mungiki smell a better fragrance. You can’t model an insecure society and be sure to remain secure.
I’ve been to the SoE offices more than 80 (recorded) times after 4th Year. I’ve missed 8 graduations. It’s always a missing mark here, and the next day, the other mark missing too. Mysteriously. I’m NEVER given my transcripts. I’ve queued whole days in the sun only to be told to come tomorrow. And tomorrow. Or Thursday next week. I’ve been told countless times to wait for the dean. Kicked all sides. Yet I am not just I. I owe HELB. I owe the family. I owe the community. I owe the country. I owe humanity. I owe myself. You look at me and see a frame of a single person. Yet I is not just I. You don’t see why I come. You don’t see how I come. You don’t see the whole picture. You see only a prole. And you don’t serve what you see.

The employer wants PAPERS. It is always embarrassing when at the interview I am asked if I have any education beyond high school. So what do I say? Missing marks? That I was expelled? That I forgot my papers? That I don’t know why I don’t have papers? Do I forge River Road creds when I have my own clean grades lying unused somewhere on dusty shelves?

You can’t steal from a prole and expect to be safe. I want to talk to the CS. I want to talk to the president. But my leg is only short. I want to take the SoE to court. I want to sue the mediocrity that calls itself the foundation of knowledge. But people have taken those paths before and they didn’t come back smiling. Before the law you are therefore indispensable. I might even end up behind heavy walls with steel gates just because of this post.
But Moi, you can’t take all from me. Us. We swear. You won’t win everything. If you refuse to give us our rightfully earned papers, we will go where we can get them. We know you are not on Facebook and so we are addressing ourselves. But we know you are on Facebook and so we are addressing you. You can’t win always. You can’t win always”