Gangs, cliques you always find in campus

In every campus there are little caucuses that students group into. This is mostly motivated by very mundane stuff. I have seen them sprout and wither faster than an ICC witness changes his mind.

There was this clique called the Council of Witches. These were seven girls who came together to start an investment group. Basically, a chama. But that is not all they did.

They also specialised in gossip services. Whenever something happened, say a girl was dumped by her boyfriend, they would know all the details. They got them from the Lord above.

Hip hop musicians

You also had Group Awesome: a study group that began as a suggestion. I was part of this one, back when I thought campus was all books and no fun.

To be fair, we also had our fair share of eccentricities. It was always awkward when I had to share a discussion with a girl in the group who I had some history with. Things ended badly. Noise was made and numbers deleted from phones. This group withered and died.

Then there were The Cool Ones. They did not choose this name. It grew on them. They were a group of around six students. They were the hip ones. The ones who students looked up to for standards of coolness. Two of them evolved into hip-hop musicians, and the word dope was strewn around a lot in their presence.

There was once a party that was fabled to have ended up in an uprooted, up-ended toilet seat, after a raunchy sexual episode. Rumours remained alleged; unproven.

Then there was the Premier League group. Boys and girls who live for football. It does not matter whether it’s local, English Premier League, or the Sahara Junior Soccer League. They dominate the TV room. We watch what they say we watch. The girls had to resort to employing alternative measures to catch up on soap operas and Tusker Project Fame.

Swimming pool

Not to be left out were The Sportsmen: They stank after 6.30pm and did not walk into their rooms until after the nine o’clock news. They were fewer than the Premier League chaps, but were different because they played sports. I did not like them coming to the swimming pool because they liked to show off their muscles. That meant that all girls would abandon us in the cold. Brawn over wit.

Finally, I present to you the Asapa Community; no one knows where that name came from.

But if you wanted people who would help you cheat in exams, rig a campus election or help you out when you were pissing drunk, then this was the group for you. You would recognise them from their shukas and the smell of whiskey.