Chapter 6
Maddie’s lecture started from the moment they got into the hover and continued until they pulled into the garage. Luyanda’s father came to the rescue and brokered a peace deal. They agreed to treat the whole thing as an experiment, where Luyanda would quit his job if his studies suffered. Not that Luyanda was particularly keen on his new position. The pay grade was nowhere near what he had expected. But even so, it was better than nothing. He resolved to hang in there until something better came along. Meanwhile, he would show his parents he was ready to make his own decisions. The sooner they got used to the notion, the better.
Over the following weeks, Luyanda settled into his day-to-day university routine. He was doing six modules in his first year. His Ancient African Languages and Oral History lecturer was Dr Flannegan. He was a tall, balding man with a thick beard that hung to his neck. His calm, monotonous drone was enough to send Luyanda and the rest of the class to sleep in minutes. Flannegan didn’t seem to care too much, so long as nobody disrupted his class. During his second lecture, as he was expanding on some of the finer details of the Adinkra symbolic language, Jabu started snoring. Flannegan scanned the faces of the class, seeking the cause of the sniggering. Luyanda woke Jabu up with a sharp kick. The snoring stopped, and Flannegan resumed his class without a word.
Dr Kanu was Luyanda’s Post-Colonial Urban Studies lecturer. She seemed to have an endless supply of colourful West African print dresses. Nomsa noted with admiration that she never wore the same outfit twice. Dr Kanu was the friendly, nurturing type. She always had a smile for everyone. She encouraged them, in her strong, sing-song West African accent, to ask lots of questions. Her mantra was “The only stupid question is the one that left unasked.” She was also the Head of their Department. Her tenure was soon ending, and it was a well-known fact that she did not want to renew it.
By far, Luyanda’s favourite lecturer was Dr Sunny Keita. He taught them Pre-Colonial Peoples, Cultures and Mythology. He was a spritely, short man with a shock of thick, grey hair and a scraggy beard to match. His infectious laugh and endless anecdotes made his classes a breath of fresh air. It was impossible to guess his age, and Luyanda and his classmates had endless debates about it. Several of the stories he told were not recorded anywhere. They soon made a game of searching for the obscure names, facts or cities that Keita would mention. Often, they would not find anything other than the briefest mention anywhere.
“Don’t bother looking for it,” Keita would say. “That information’s never been digitized. If I were you, I would check the hard copy books in the library.”
Nomsa often took it upon herself to do so. She would then show up at the next lecture with information corroborating Keita’s story. But just as often, she would fail to find anything.
Whenever they would challenge him about it, he would laugh and say, “You realise that most of this continent’s history has not been written, right? A good deal of information can only be got by word of mouth. It’s taken me many years of speaking to many people in many places to accumulate this knowledge. I am much older than I look!”
Luyanda particularly appreciated Keita’s efforts to learn all their names. By the second lesson he had mastered them all - a feat no other lecturer dared even try. They also realised that Keita was a veritable polyglot. As he asked each student their name, he also asked them where they came from. As soon as they answered, he would break out into their home language. Keita was often more fluent in their mother-tongues than they were. He also had a healthy appreciation for the mystical.
“Not everything in Ancient African cultures has a logical explanation,” he would say. “Understand that logic is but one branch of knowledge. It lends itself to the West’s reductionist and rationalists view of life. Yet it cannot explain even basic things - like where we all came from, for example.”
Within a short time, Keita’s lectures were the best attended.
Dr Uru, the museum director, took them for their Slavery in Africa elective course. Nomsa, Jabu and Luyanda had all signed up for the course in the first semester. They found the classes to be tense and hard to get through. It was a difficult subject. Dr Uru was unapologetic about his anger towards the perpetrators of the atrocities he spoke of.
“But it’s been so long,” Luyanda complained after another one of their classes. “Why is he still so angry?”
“I guess it’s kind of like watching a sad movie over and over again,” Nomsa replied. “It sort of rubs off on you and you become gloomy all the time.”
“So what you want us to do?” Jabu asked, “should we just ignore it? And act as if it never happened?”
“I’m not saying forget about it. I’m saying there’s no need to rub it in our faces like all the time. What’s past is past.”
“No,” Jabu said. “He doesn’t want us to forget because if we forget it’s going to happen again.”
“You’re right,” Nomsa answered, “but still… There’s something about the way he speaks that rubs me up the wrong way.”
Over and above the lectures, they also had to attend tutorial sessions. These were classes ancillary to the lectures. There, they drilled deeper into specific aspects of each lesson. The tutorials were boring in the main, and Luyanda would have skipped them if they hadn’t been compulsory. With time, he found them useful, despite how boring they were.
There was one tutor, though, that became the bane of his existence. Her name was Hester Bimba, or Bimba, as everyone called her. She was the Pre-Colonial Peoples, Cultures and Mythology tutor. Luyanda found himself in the odd predicament that the subject he enjoyed the most had the least enjoyable tutorials. Bimba was reading for a doctorate Degree in Ancient Arts and Artefacts. From the moment that she walked into the class, Luyanda knew that there would be trouble. She carried herself with that air peculiar to people with a chip on their shoulder. She stalked into the classroom and slammed the door shut with a bang.
“Welcome to the Pre-Colonial Studies tutorial,” she announced. “My name is Hester Bimba. You can call me Miss Bimba or ma’am. Though in a few months’ time when I graduate, you will refer to me as Doctor Bimba. But nothing stops you from getting some practice in now,” she added with a silly little giggle.
Nobody else laughed. Jabu turned to Luyanda and made a face. It was all Luyanda could do to keep from bursting out laughing.
“First,” Bimba continued, “some housekeeping. I don’t allow latecomers into my classes. No exceptions. Today was the first day, and you didn’t know the rule. But as from next week, no exceptions. Please tell whoever is absent. Second, all assignments will be due on the due date at exactly twelve noon. No exceptions. I never, ever show the due time. It is always to be assumed to be twelve noon. No exceptions. Rule number three, I keep track of attendance and class participation, and these play a big role in the marks I give you for each assignment. So participate. If you don’t participate, you will fail. No exceptions. Rule number four….”
Luyanda had never heard so many rules in his life. He felt as if they were back in kindergarten. Nomsa was sitting beside him and Jabu was next to her. He craned his neck to catch Jabu’s attention. Jabu had already drifted off and was fast asleep.
Bimba’s first few tutorial sessions were on research methodologies. Keita had only touched on the topic before proceeding onto more interesting fare. Luyanda was grateful that her session was only once a week. He wasn’t sure he could stomach much more than two hours a week of Bimba’s classes on research methods. She would grab every occasion to speak about her thesis. After a few sessions, they knew all the “Unanswered Questions in The Search for The Golden Stool of the Ashanti”.
One day, she gave them copies of her conclusion and bibliography as an example of a well-written paper. After they had finished reading the last entry of her bibliography, Nomsa’s hand shot up.
“Yes, what’s-your-name-again?”
“Nomsa. I noticed in your bibliography you did not include Bhengu, Mutola and Okello.”
“Sorry? Who are those?”
“Aren’t they the three biggest names in Cultural Artefact research?”
“Well,” Bimba replied laughing, “They can’t be that important, otherwise I would’ve heard of them.”
“That’s because all your research draws on Marxist and the Post-Modernist thought.” Bimba frowned. Nomsa continued, oblivious. “All the authorities you cite and all the books you mention are a part of that tradition. I am sure if you checked the non-prescribed texts, you will find other frameworks.”
Bimba’s face hardened into a scowl. “You can have the pleasure of doing that when you get to my stage and are reading for your Masters. But for now, let’s keep to the prescribed texts, shall we? I’m the one with the Masters, not you.”
Nomsa’s face darkened. She sank deeper into her seat and mumbled, “Not yet, you twit. Not yet.”
Luyanda glanced across at Jabu. He was wide awake. Wide awake and grinning from ear to ear.