Sossi to the boys’ rescue!

By Thomas Bosire
Semesters are like football seasons. Each one throws a whole new gauntlet down at your feet. In third year, there was this semester that had us rolling a boulder up a hill. We were in the thick of things in a small one-bedroom house, and stress was still eating away at the little space left. We were worried sick since HELB had long been swallowed whole by a never ending pit of needs—booze, babes and bundles of short lived but joyful whims. That semester just seemed never ending.

And there we were, four dudes squatting in this crib that looked like the movie set of an action scene as clothes, furniture and utensils lay strewn all over. I had inherited the house from a fifth year, engineering student who had surrendered from the unkind campus life and left to start his own company. Thankfully, he had already paid the rent. When my friends heard that I was living large and had no caretaker banging on my door every morning, they became wildly interested in joining me in The Crib.

Kangethe, the riff-raff hopper who moves in between comrades’ bedsitters and lives as a refugee, was the first to claim space in The Crib. Kevo the light-skinned dude who was ejected unceremoniously from his girlfriend’s place after her sponsor found out about him, followed. And finally, there was Wafula, whose oven-like mabati house had really changed his complexion.

We were thus a quartet of miserable chaps who hopped from lecture to lecture while living like alley cats. Our place was so disorganised but none of us was keen on moving a muscle to clean up. Dirty cups and socks were gasping for air on the bathroom sink, someone’s wide necked T-shirt was lying comatose after being converted into a mop, and the mosquito net had found another use –sieving tea. Wafula, who was friends with the mess cook, had borrowed a huge Sufuria which served its purpose in making meals, but washing it was an extreme sport.

Completing our house furniture were two office chairs that we took turns swinging in circles while watching movie series on a projector that Kangethe proudly owned. Since the price of food was a persistent wound that that none of us were willing to add salt to, supper was the most important meal. Lunchtime was a luxury we couldn’t afford and to pass time, we told boring stories and dry jokes. The rest of the day was spent lamenting about how bland supper was becoming.

 Feeding on cabbage almost every day was humbling. While others used it as salad, crispy chopped into thin slivers, ours was carelessly cut and steamed to a thick, disgusting broth. We could no longer afford our beloved African cake, read Ugali. Kales, our second choice of vegetables, were a pain in the oesophagus. We had routinely used it to push the weeks until we felt it growing on our arable intestines. We were unwilling vegetarians on the brink of malnutrition. We could not afford meat since our collective net worth was way below the skyscraper price of nyama. Oh, the troubles of being broke! We no longer looked forward to supper.

During this protein drought, we often wondered how the nosy caretaker always managed to prepare meat every day. A savory, meaty aroma always wafted through the flat every evening. It took my investigating skills to realise he was taking a cheaper form of meat – Sossi Soya.

When we found out the thing cost less than Sh100 we rushed to the shop. When we cooked it the first time, the gang couldn’t help but lick their fingers as they decimated a mountain of Ugali got decimated. Our food headache had been solved! We had to borrow funds to purchase a dozen Sossi packets.

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