Omu’s Farewell
Today, we are seeing off a Kenyan who is leaving Addis for good. He has been in the Ethiopian IT scene for the last 2 years. He is one of my closest fiends in Addis. He got a better deal in Rwanda. Already, I’m kind of depressed since I know I will greatly miss his presence around.
His name is Omu. Let me describe Omu briefly. He talks throughout and smokes the rest of the time.
As long as you say “Mhhhh†after a few minutes, you might as well be sleeping through his torrent of words. Luckily, he is a very intelligent guy. He sleeps a maximum of 2 hours per day. When the rest of us are sleeping, he is browsing and writing code. Yes, and smoking. He is trained as a doctor but opted to explore the ever-changing landscape of Information Technology.
Anyway, Omu is our mobile knowledge base. If you have any question, from Internet security and acceleration server to zebu cattle, Omu is your guy. And you will get the answer in details.
He also tells some very interesting sagas. Most of them are centered on Chiromo mortuary, at the University of Nairobi where he spent quite some time in the 90s. Here is one: A fellow student once wrapped himself up in white sheets and lay on the autopsy table. When the lecturer was showing some new medical students around, the “corpse†suddenly sat up and stretched to yawn! Omu claims that the lecturer beat everyone to the door. Of course the “corpse†was thrown out of campus.
Apparently, each student works on the same cadaver (corpse) for the whole period that they are in med school. You dissect various part of the body over a period of about 5 years. Omu’s was a Maasai woman. Quite pretty he says!
There used to be many CATs (continuous assessment tests) that test your knowledge on the human body. Like, you were supposed to dissect the neck of your cadaver and name all the blood vessels there. If you have been drinking instead of working in the morgue, you’d get a tough time on the CAT day.
The option was to carry the part to be tested to your room (or home for the weekend), and dissect to study whenever you have time. He claimed it’s really simple. You just dismember the body part, put it in a bag. Next, you remove your lab coat, put on your cap and walk. He once carried the hip of the Maasai woman to his sleeping quarters a few miles away. And he took a bus.
Omu advises everyone to be nice to his or her family. You don’t want to die, and your family refuses to claim your body. Your frozen torso might end up on a dining room table, being probed by a medical student with a serious hangover.
Have to go and hang out with Omu now. Today/tomorrow will be a “kasorobo†day – Short for “saa kumi na mbili kasorobo†(5.45 am) in the morning, when we will be thrown out of our favorite club!