Black Child Focus

Image coronal brain slices and see if they express the virus. Expression means a red glow against the lens. This is my task for Thursday. I task that I vehemently did not want to try. I did not feel up to task. 

“Acquaint yourself with it," the one in charge of the intern today, urges. 

I start caressing the knobs, big and small, I wrap my fingers on the eye piece, squint through the lens, adjust and readjust the objective lenses. Deep down, the voice whispers ,woe unto you, thou shalt have learned to use a miscroscope.

I wonder why my incantaations against the working of this microscope were not heeded. Last Thursday, my imploring had reached the ears of Heaven. 

The postdoctoral fellow in charge had worked for two hours in vain. The slices sitting pretty in the wells could not be seen. Oblivious to him, the invocations I had made became a stronghold to the science he possessed. Utterly embarrassed, dejected and destitute, he gave up and told me I could have the day to myself: to toggle between blog posts, Skyscanner deals, flixbus, omio, waiting for the clock to tick to 17h 00. 

Today, my prayers hit the ceiling.

Everything was working, nice and easy. 

Work had to be done. To be done by me. 

I was here to learn and to learn I must. The days of joyriding had come to an end.

Mouse brain map in hand, scanning the coordinates for the bregma, I convinced myself I could do this. I just had to squint enough. 

Nevertheless, I’m a smart kid. I beat everyone in my village, county and country to be here. What can mere science do to me? 

So I tinkered and tinkered, cursing under my breath, wiping my brow, grinding my teeth and biting my lips. I almost took a moment to cry. But I was scared they’d catch me while at it and feel sorry for what a weakling I am. Defeated at the face of the flimsiest scientific research hurdles. 

“Gladly, I leave in two weeks. I’ll be gone before they find out the foolery I have done with these slices of poor mice. Martyrs who lost their lives for this cause"

But let me try and push through, undergrad research assistant at a neuroscience lab would look sexy on my resume,  a hot cake in this job market. 

For this light momentary affliction is preparing me for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

                                                                         ...

Door opens behind me, interrupting my reverie. 

“Hi what’s your name, a jolly-faced dude asks. 

I’m from the East and study in the West. I tell him. He smiles, a little too much. The joy seems ingenuine.

These folks love when one is from the West. It intrigues them. 

He barges in again, asks how much a biomedical scientist in the West earns. He gasps at the figure and vows to take his search there. 

"Combo ya mualgeria na mkenya, mmmh noma..."

I look back into the microscope. Nothing. Just darkness.

North and East.

Quran and the Word.

Salaam and Habar

Couscous and ugal

Curly-haired gamins

This Nikkah won't work 

BLACK CHILD FOCUS