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I looked at the WhatsApp message. It read that there was an open session of KDF (Kenya Defense Force) or as we call them, the army, tryouts. I thought to myself, "this must be fake news." I had to look for other sources, so I trotted to my Grandparents house and straight to grandpa, the family newspaper sole buyer and reader.
"Grandpa, do you have today's newspaper?" I asked grinning at him. I lingered as I thought he hasn't heard me and I was about to repeat myself when he lowered the book he was reading.
He gave me his teacher-look over his reading glasses. After weighing me he answered in his low tone, that sometimes you can barely understand what he is saying unless you pay much attention, "yes, I have it." He paused, as if waiting for me to go ahead and borrow it and just as I was about to, he asked me thoughtfully, "what do you want to check?" "The DN2 was not published today," he added confused.
"Uh, I want to check the army recruit news," I answered shyly.
Before me sat the man I had just let down a couple years back, yet his compassion was still intact as it revealed through his interactions with my baby. He put down the book he was engrossed in. Reaching for his stacked pieces of newspapers, he pulled out that day's paper.
"When you're done, be sure to return it, I am not through with it yet," he reminded me. I knew by that he meant he has a crossword and a sudoku to fill in.
"Thank you grandpa," I said taking the newspaper. I lingered for a second before I hurriedly walked out of the house before he interrogated me further. Once I got home, I perused through the paper and yes, the army was recruiting. I checked the dates that our village town would hold the recruit session and there it was in two weeks time.
In the course of the first week, I asked a local police officer, Mwangi, what it would take me to get to join the army. "You must be physically fit, have your certificates with you, your national ID card and most of all, you must have your teeth with you," Mwangi said. "If you want to join, I'd advise you start exercising as early as now," he added.
I went home all smiles as if I had already secured myself a position in the army. At dinner I told my family what Mwangi, the policeman, had told me.
"I intend to start my home training at dawn," I told Mama, who looked at me as if I have lost some mind screws.
"You?" she asked speculatively. "The same you who I call every morning for almost fifty times, you want to start exercising?" she added full of doubt. At this point I was so determined and I saw my childhood dream coming true.
"Yes, me, mom," I said laughing. "You don't think I can do it?" I asked cocking my head to my right as I tickled my baby.
"You do you," she said. I was excited as that read as her acceptance of me joining the army.
I woke up early and jogged my way to the river that divides our ridges, and circled back, all out of breath before I sat down to have breakfast and proceed to the tea plantation to pluck tea. I was so hyped and I invited a friend of mine from another village near ours to go to the army recruits. Eunice, my friend was glad to join me and we even made plans how we would get to the stadium.
Two days prior to the recruit day, Mama and I got into a verbal fight. The details of our fight are still vague but they made me lose all the interest. I was fuming, hurt and broken that all the morale left me. Funny, something also happened to Eunice and she texted me, "I don't think I can make to go with you on Friday."
"No worries, I too feel depleted to even go, Mama is mad at me, and I doubt with her being mad, I will get in," I replied her.
Friday came, and I woke up tired. Too tired and still upset with Mama to put it all behind me and take a motorbike to town stadium and try my luck. My hurt ego wouldn't allow me to. I took breakfast and instead of going to town, I headed to the tea farm.
"Maybe, I wouldn't get in and this is God sparing me another heartbreak of hard work," I tried to brush it off. Though deep within I somehow knew, by my failing to go to the stadium that day, I was missing my boat, in full daylight.
Around Wednesday, I met with Mwangi, whom I had been avoiding since I had promised him I would at least try out. "Hi Tabby, how are you?" he asked, more jovially than I was feeling.
"Oh, I'm good sir, how are you?" I tried to be as enthusiastic as him but I knew that he knew that even the smile I was giving him was crooked and fake. He saw through the smile and didn't beat around the bush.
"You didn't go to the stadium, right?" he asked. I lowered my face in what was a mixture of shame and failure.
"Yeah, I didn't go," I finally answered relief washing me as I admitted that I didn't go. "How was it?" I managed to ask, against all my will. I sensed the answer would be breaking.
"I wish you had attended," he said.
"Why?" I asked, getting curious now.
"Do you know that of all the recruits on that stadium only two were ladies and they got favored? The commanders were on the lookout for lady recruits. If you had gone, it was a sure bet that you'd have gotten in." As he told me that, I felt the weight of all my ego and short term anger rest on my shoulders. My shoulders slumped. My boat had just sailed off and I had missed it by a fraction I would have overlooked. If only I could have turned the clock back to that Friday morning...
Thank you for reading❤️!