Hostel life: Beyond all the thrills

So it is that time of the year. Many have been admitted to that prestigious university. For those whom freedom was elusive due to strict secondary school rules or over-protective parents, the time has come for the young, wild and free life.

For many parents, unknown to them, hostel life is one that brings a triad of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Take an example of Stella, a first-year student at the University of Dar es Salaam with high expectations about hostel life. “Of course, I can’t wait to join and get that aura of independence and do whatever I want, when I choose and with whoever I want,” she speaks with excitement.

To the parents, two years down the road, they may be receiving grand-children from their children who explored the peaks of the freedom that campus life brings. Others may welcome back alcoholics who, years before had joined university as teetotalers.

The good

Hostel life comes with responsibility which ideally comes with maturity. If there is one clear evolution path to adulthood, then hostel life provides it. Pearl, a third year student at the University of Dar es Salaam attests to this. “One really learns how to make personal decisions, manage one’s life and maintain a budget.” Her room-mate at Mabibo Hostel, Sharon, corroborates, “You get to interact with different people, get on the road to self-development and learn the art of being independent.”

Independent they are indeed, their room is like a home away from home. Ranging from basic utilities like plates, gas cookers to television sets and home theatre system, they have it all. And for many, in the after-math of graduation, hostel life will have prepared them for life in their own spinster or bachelor pad.

The bad

For the mummies’ boys and the daddies’ girls, hostel life is challenging if not stressing. For those who traverse district after district, it is a whole new chapter in life being miles away from home. Hostel life comes with keeping up with the trends, putting up appearances and living in a boxed life of a larger-than life way of dwelling.

“You can’t be expected to wear the same dress-top week in, week out, you just feel pressured to do all that it takes to keep re-stocking your wardrobe,” Gloria, a student at the UDSM’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, comments.

“And you also have to face up with different characters, as roommates come in all fashions,” she explains. To some, it is that unhygienic roommate, to others, it is that Holy Mary, super religious roommate who keeps reciting Bible verses to the nagging of her room-mates.

“Then you have that annoying neighbour.

That egocentric twerp who plays loud music or worse when his girlfriend is also around, there are always loud irritable sounds going through the corridor,” Edward from St Augustine’s University.

For Stella, the annoying bit is the uncontrollable swan that these friends become, stomping the yard, drinking, throwing up in the sink as noise blares from their ‘cheap’ subwoofers.

And then the feeding sets in. As the semester begins, everyone prides in a ‘fat’ wallet and fast food joints are the order of the day. But a good stay in a hostel will also teach one, that cooking from the hostel is cheaper in the long-run.

Many parents would wish not to read this, but hostel can also be the devil’s den of all sorts. There is more that goes on behind hostel gates and curtains of hostel rooms, all events public secret among students yet hearsay to the rest of the world.

Abeka, a student at Tumaini University speaks of the phenomenon of the “weekend wives”. “Weekend wives” on campus speak refers to female students who take on marital duties over the weekend at their boyfriends residences.

In real sense, students wind up the week in the company of their lovers taking care of each other’s “needs”.

“I invite a girlfriend every weekend to do my laundry, cook and of course give me stuff (read sex). She comes on Friday morning and leaves on Sunday evening,” confesses Francis, a third-year student at the University of Dar es Salaam.

This trend is popular among finalists who woo unsuspecting high school girls from neighbouring schools and the naïve first year students.

“The mere sight of empty wine bottles, television set, woollen carpet and wardrobe makes them think I am a wealthy guy from an affluent background, unaware that it took me three years to accumulate this property,” Francis concludes.

Then, there is that co-habiting couple. These are students who take the courage to live like husband and wife.

The couple rents a single room, well-furnished and complete with a double bed. The girl plays the role of typical housewife taking care of general house duties while the boy is expected to cater for the luxuries, make up and food. They pool resources from their parents to finance this lifestyle.

Majority of these relationships are carried on from high school while others graduate from the weekend-wife stage. Some couples are course mates. Because of the costs involved and need to keep up appearances as “happy-well-to –do couple”, “cohabiting couples” settle for the distasteful rental premises in surrounding areas.

Then there are the call-girl type who have mastered the art of “detoothing” and siphoning money out of older men aka “sugar-daddies.”

These are picked up on Friday evenings and only return on Mondays with hang-overs. Some of these girls’ boyfriends are the men who park those expensive fuel guzzlers. Behind the closed doors of the hostels, are students engaged in drugs and smoking cigarettes.

“At the balcony, they will stand, jabbering about something mushy like soccer, glasses of gin nestled in their hands, and cigarettes sticking between their lips. Then the whole alley will reek, on the smoke,” explains Abeka.

Is there a way out?

Of course some hostels have tried to implement rules to the core. For most of the hostels I visited, visitors are required to sign in a visitors’ book and leave their identity card at the security office as they head to the rooms of their hosts.

However, that is all to the security precautions, whatever happens in the rooms is under the control of the host and the visitor.

At some girls-only hostels, the rules stipulate that males are not allowed to enter the premises, but more often than not, the caretaker notes that they have failed to implement this rule. After all, these students are grown ups!