Butare University had yet another Graduation ceremony on Friday! This means that it’s time for merry making and gate crushing for Graduation parties! It is amazing how times have changed. Today, we have so many Universities and hundreds of graduates. During the mid 90s, the situation was different. Aggrey and I were quite visionary during those days. We had decided that a degree would be the gate to great things. When I mention the word degree, I do not quite mean the University certificate. No way! For us during the mid 90s, a degree referred to that special gown that graduates dress in at graduation ceremonies. For us, a grand picture of Aggrey and I dressed in that gown would have been good enough whether we attended University or not! The photograph that Aggrey and I were looking for would serve two main purposes. The first purpose was to be able to hook some unsuspecting Kigali chicks who would consider us to be well educated young lads. The second purpose was of course to obtain better paying jobs. So since we were just small time clerks at a certain NGO situated in Gikondo, we quickly realized that we had to get some degrees. That is how we ended up enrolling in a funny looking institute of highest education somewhere in Biryogo. The directors of the institute pledged to us that we would get our degrees after 18 months only. They told us that we would soon be certified chartered degree holders. In order to meet these special qualifications, we had to pay a handsome amount of cash to the Biryogo based institute. The only source of financing was from our NGO where we applied for salary advances. In the process we signed commitment letters to the effect that we were to remain loyal employees of the NGO until we cleared the salary advances. That implied that we were to stick to this NGO for at least 6 more years. Since we were servicing this office loan on a monthly basis, our monthly take home package had been reduced to miserable levels. That meant that we had to revise our nocturnal lifestyle and embrace some cost cutting measures. Anyways, classes began immediately. We started class with just two students. Yes, it was just Aggrey and I alone. When we asked our school directors as to where the rest of the group was, they told us that some of the students were arriving all the way from Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana. They told us that this degree course was so popular that even students from abroad were registering left right and center! So, Aggrey and I persisted and attended classes as we waited for the rest to join. A week passed but there were no signs of other students. In the meantime, we received several lecturers who wobbled in escorted by a very familiar scent. The scent was not in form of Brut perfume or Gillette aftershave. No way! The scent was actually a terrible smell which was a combination of crude Waragi plus cigarette smoke. Also, it’s needless to mention that these lecturers had last put their feet in a basin of water about 3 months ago. Since our classroom was the size of a standard domestic food store, the effects of the smell usually knocked us out within the first five minutes of the lecture. That is why we would immediately request for a 15 minute break so that we could catch some fresh air. The lecturers were also lazy so they would use the opportunity to give us some assignments to take home. The studies continued for two months until one Monday morning when Aggrey and I encountered a handwritten sign post at our Biryogo institute of highest learning. The message on the signpost was clear; “With effect from today, this school has been closed” There was no reason given. During those days, there were no mobile phones. We did not have any other contact details in order to hunt for the directors. Our world was crumbling very fast indeed. We trekked to the ministry of education to inquire about a certain institute of highest education situated in Biryogo. After a thorough check, we were told that such an institute had never ever been registered. With all our frustrations and anger, we demanded a full refund from the ministry officials. They looked at us and responded thus; “Are we the ones who ate your money?” We were cooked! All we had to do was to just chill out and suffer locally. We picked up our books and headed back home. We had been conned and now we had an office loan to service for the next 6 years. Our hopes of hanging a graduation photo on our walls were dashed! diaspoman@yahoo.com
