It’s gym time!

So today after a long time away I paid a visit to Burundi. No; not that country. If you’ve been in KU for probably one semester you will know why Burundi is a place of interest. It is here where event organizers go to shop for the perfect bouncers. The one’s with chests the size of Tom Mboya’s statue and the legs of Lupita Nyongo.  It is here where men with mutual respect for hard work and toil congregate to share dieting and workout tips. It doesn’t matter for how long you’ve been caressing the weights, a Burundian has to immediately acquire the gait of Rambo and strut around campus like a colossus. You will probably start noticing that the university’s gates are suddenly getting smaller for your convenience and you have to start passing sideways through the metal detectors. 

I once had that ambition to be on top of the world, to feel supreme. To set my own rules and remind the ‘smaller’ men who the real boss is. To have absolutely no qualms to knock out somebody’s expensive drinks just to slight them to their dates. But my main motivation was to send chills to Johnny Bravo. Not just to stand my ground; that I could easily do with my hockey stick as a weapon. If you watched those mafia movies back then when five shillings was enough entertainment allowance for three hours you’ll recall that there was always that starring who never seemed to die. They would be put to purpose by revenge for a dead friend, family or somebody they just met on the train. Whatever their motive whether out of sheer boredom or a sense of divine justice they always marveled me. I remember in class five I changed my name to David Bradley, he of the Delta Force movies. Of course my mother didn’t let the joke go on for long.

Forgive my detour; you just need to understand where I’m coming from. Back to Johnny Bravo. You remember the famous Johnny Bravo, the super ‘douche’ who made our mornings on carton network? Yes, exactly...…that’s him; in flesh this time; just a darker, shorter and a more hairy version making him scarier than the original version. What would have peace loving Varaq done to piss off gigantic Johnny bravo? It wasn’t my fault I must say from the onset.

See in first year there’s this friend of ours called Wiz. Not his names recognized by the HELB records of course. He was a Kariuki from Thika but heavily influenced by Lil Wayne. He had dreadlocks on his head and his trousers were those ones with chains that my neighbor at Kotieno could probably use to tie Saddam, Bush and Osama and stop them from causing havoc in the village. In case I lost you there, those names aren’t for humans but for some fierce canines who have no qualms in devouring an entire limb at the slightest provocation. Now Kariuki my friend, sorry he doesn’t like that name much, always had his trademark trousers hanging below his Liverpool pants. You probably are wondering where I’m going on with this. I’ll get there shortly.

Wiz had this gorgeous girlfriend called something something. It’s actually strange I don’t remember her name considering she is the reason why I had my ego punctured by another man. It’s the classic story of ladies preferring muscle over swag. In my foolish bravado and false sense of loyalty I may have uttered some unprintable words to provoke a trigger happy muscled man. You don’t wanna know what happened. Just know that it is the reason I hit the grounds of Burundi like a guy possessed. A week later and no major change in physique I gave up and accepted my fate as a small man. Maybe God had his reasons.

I remembered this story and laughed at the folly of youth. That place seems doesn’t change much. Uji is still fifteen bob despite the passing of the VAT bill. Once again not relevant to the story I just like to talk about VAT to piss some people. The rickety benches that I left at the muscle factory the last time I was there are still the foams from which fats are burned. Never mind that during that time the good university has completed constructions on the Postmodern Library and a couple of buildings fully furnished with electric chairs that respond to sensory motion. Ok, you can close your mouth now, that’s a slight exaggeration. But as they say Burundi isn’t the infrastructure, it is the person. That quote sounds familiar, right? Even the faces who were there when I was still an innocent fresher are still the same. The only thing probably different was the number of staff and the introduction of omena as lunch delicacy.

So why am I back to Burundi? See, there is this girl that I met the other day in KM. That’s not rocket science, it’s always about a girl. If there’s anything closest to perfection then Doreen it is. With the smile of an angel and her amazing walk. The one wahengas (still don’t know who they are) would call ‘mwendo wa njiwa’. Of course that’s nothing if her milk dispensers and her Kogallo Defence Forces  isn’t strong enough to carry a child without holding him. She is the kind of girl with that innocent charm that you feel like holding and never letting go.

But that alone isn’t enough motivation to spend my entire doing harming my body to gain some abs. See, Doreen and Johnny bravo have something going. And whereas my lips moved to purpose by crammed Shakespearean lines has never let me down, the same level of confidence cannot be said about my martial ability to defend myself lest the wounded lion come for me. I want to b the hero of the story, not a martyr. It won’t be bad for my posthumous CV though if I were St Varaq. A guy can dream right?

 In the meantime I’ll take my time, not three days this time…maybe three weeks, maybe three months.

I hope what revenge couldn’t accomplish, real love can.

Wish me luck