Last week, four of our lecturers decided to return out CAT papers, at the same
time (talk about giving a student a heart attack). One of my classmates in a
fit of rage threw up his papers and said:
“siku hizi ni kuchimba
tu lakini sijali…..nili give-up kitambo” (these days all I do is fail but I
gave up long time ago)
Our attempts to cool him down were in vain and one of us
ended up with an emotional wound since he started saying so many nasty things (I
thought women were the drama queens…this one made me leave that opinion open). So
there he was, he “threw in the towel”
and to think that it is our last semester in campus made me feel so bad.
The wise old man, now deceased and decayed, Solomon said in
the book of Proverbs “For a righteous man falleth seven times, and
riseth up again; But the wicked are overthrown by calamity.” (Proverbs
24:16)
I am just thinking how you would fall seven times…really,
not unless it’s in the rain and your shoes have no grip, there are plenty of
bananas on your way or you’re just crazy for you to fall seven times at once. But
anyway the main purpose of this verse is to encourage us not to give up. Just imagine
falling down seven times (even in different days) and just waking up each time.
Most of us have become experts in giving up. our common vocabulary is "I give up". You fail once and you give up
immediately, without even giving it a second thought…be it exams, life goals,
relationships(especially this one, I hear some young people as young as 20
years old say that they have given up on love and I’m like seriously?! You have
not even lived a bit of your life to give up), conflict resolution or on life
goals. A tiny slip and you throw in the towel (to wherever those towels are
thrown into). By the way, where do all those towels that are thrown “in” go?
I attempted to quote that verse to my classmate and the
response was, “aki sasa bado ntachimba
six times ndio nipite! Na exams ni next week” (oh great! Now I have six
more times to fall so that I wake up and we are having exams next week) and then
the therapy session started. My point, anyway, is and was THOU SHALT NOT GIVE
UP!!
For those of us familiar with the theory of probabilities
(yes I love math, students are in an “exam-mode” and this would not end without
throwing in a math “something-y”), you are aware that the probability of
getting 1 right in of 10 attempts increases as you tend to move from 0 to 10
attempts :-)
