In this hilarious TBT memo, Robert Maina, a Kenyan university student, narrates how an attempt to hook his motorbike taxi (boda boda) operator with a campus girl turned awry.
I still owed Mangale KSh 2,000, a debt stitched together from the small, desperate loans that keep a campus survivor one step ahead of starvation and two steps behind dignity.
Every coin had a story; none had a repayment plan.
Then fate, which had been ignoring Mangale like a landlord ignores your greetings, suddenly remembered his existence.
The man got himself a boda boda. Overnight, he transformed from a professional loiterer into a man who could confidently jingle coins in his pocket – at least KSh 500 a day.
Not riches, but enough to develop ambitions. Dangerous ones.
With this fresh financial breeze rustling his previously empty pockets, Mangale approached me with a declaration that would have made Shakespeare pause mid-quill: he wanted to win the heart of a campus girl. Not for long, mind you; just one glorious, cinematic day.
At first, I laughed. Not a polite chuckle, a full-bodied, ribs-in-danger laugh. But Mangale didn’t flinch.
His face held the kind of determination usually reserved for people climbing Mount Kenya or escaping exam retakes. This man was serious. Alarmingly serious.
And just like that, I found myself recruited, no, conscripted, into what can only be described as a romantic heist.
Step one: appearance. I advised him to borrow a suit. Naturally, he should not borrow a suit from me, as my wardrobe resembles a museum of disappointment. Step two: liquidity.
I told him he needed at least KSh10,000 in cash. Not for extravagance, but for survival.
You see, the target, Carol, was no ordinary campus girl. She was what the university grapevine respectfully refers to as a “guzzler”.
The kind of lady who could dismantle a crate of beer with the efficiency of a government audit. Blink twice, and she’d be asking what’s next.
The KSh 10,000 wasn’t a budget. It was a defensive strategy.
The plan was simple: there was a party that evening at some student’s suspiciously luxurious home — the kind of place that makes you question your life choices and your parents’ careers.
That would be our hunting ground. Mangale’s battlefield. Carol’s natural habitat.
On the morning of the operation, I took my role seriously. I coached Mangale like a man preparing a rookie for the Champions League final. How to walk. How to sit. How to laugh without sounding like a faulty generator. How not to finish drinks like he was still on boda boda duty.
By midday, Mangale stood before me transformed, a fresh haircut and a borrowed suit hanging onto him like he, too, was nervous about the mission.
He looked like a man ready to risk it all for love… or at least for a memorable 24 hours.
And me? I stood there, still broke, still owing him money; now somehow I was also the chief strategist of a romantic operation funded by a man I hadn’t paid back.
Life, I realised, has a wicked sense of humour. And that evening, it was about to laugh even louder.
I made him understand that while most of the girls tend not to be demanding when relating to their fellow comrades, it is altogether different when they’re approached by outsiders.
Later that evening, I introduced Mangale to the lady comrades. With smiles, firm handshakes, and openly interested glances, I knew Mangale was almost there.
I noticed Carol a few steps from where we were standing and walked up to her to say hi.
It worked like magic. Mangale, whom I had introduced as an engineer friend of mine, played his gentlemanly mien well, and at one point I almost punched the air with joy.
Carol seemed mesmerised by meeting a well-dressed engineer who wasn’t drowning himself in beer, as is the norm.
During the coaching earlier in the day, I had told Mangale to shun beer in favour of a cocktail for the simple reason that cocktails give the impression of a man possessing excellent taste and a rapier intellect.
As the night wore on, it seemed more and more likely that Mangale would not only cancel the KSh 2,000 debt I owed him but perhaps also offer me a handsome tip.
And then something happened
Earlier in the day, I had told Mangale that some comrades are wont to start intellectual debates when they get drunk. But I had also told him that participating in such discussions and making a mark would increase his chances of being noticed.
To sound smart, I gave him a few quotes to memorise. I had also explained plainly that I myself did not quite understand the quotes but was also sure that nobody else did either should he quote any of them.
I walked up to where they were standing and started a discussion on economics, which I knew Carol liked.
Yours truly: “What do you think of the Kenya Kwanza’s government’s plan to turn the economy around? I don’t think we will see results for at least two years, really.”
Carol: “I don’t think it will take that long. I hope not. President Ruto seems to know his thing, and we’re likely to see results sooner than expected.”
Mangale: ‘Schopenhauer once said, “A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterwards deducted, for the more we look forward to anything, the less we enjoy it when it comes.’ Food for thought.”
Stunned silence from all around us. Mangale was still basking in the moment’s glory when Carol, who was tipsy, went hysterical and literally dragged him to the podium.
Carol, in her loud element, had asked the DJ to stop the music for a minute so she could introduce her new catch, an engineer and a philosopher.
A nervous shriek escaped me as Mangale was handed the microphone to introduce himself; the thought that he would blow the gains achieved so far lingered in my mind.
As he stepped forward to introduce himself as engineer and philosopher Mangale, aka Danny Welbeck, I was almost certain he would negotiate the final hurdle in one piece.
“Don’t hear what she is saying. I have not much stand on the matters of engineer and flowsophy. But it is true, I never danced with education in school…..I have a digirii in Faculty….” Mangale had said with seriousness that belied his hilarious grammatical errors and ignorance, to the sarcastic applause of comrades.
I felt like walking to the podium and snatching the microphone from him. In the ensuing confusion, one comrade stepped forward and said something to the effect that he had seen Mangale in a high-visibility jacket, somewhere, riding a motorcycle to earn a living.
All hell broke loose when Onyi, the fourth-year electrical engineering student, scribbled what I overheard was the simplest sum in engineering math for Mangale to solve. Of course, Mangale could not solve the sum, bringing an abrupt end to his quest for a campus girl.
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I was eventually forced to intervene. Yes, Mangale escaped, but minus the KSh 10,000, which of course remained with Onyi and co.
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