It’s The Simple Things
I never thought I’d love the simple things
Since I was small, I was certain I wanted to be a mad scientist.
Well, not absolutely certain.
There were times when I wanted to take Kenya to the football World Cup, but my dreams were shattered. Now I have other dreams, the kind where I can control huge decisive levers.
But I always knew I had to be a scientist.
There was a show on Cartoon Network called Sheep in the Big City. It had a mad scientist. I loved the character. I wanted to be something of the sort, but not the one who blows things up.
Icons like Jay-Jay Okocha and JJ Masiga are the ones who inspired me to do it all. Okocha was so good, that they decided to name him twice — Jay Jay.
These players did not just play sports professionally but had accomplished other academic goals.
I wanted to do that.
I was so interested in many things — football, basketball, physics, biology, chemistry, athletics, chess, dancing, hip-hop. Surprising how I narrowed it down to this simple field which, by the way, is not that simple.
Feels so much better than the wrong thing
Mid-high school, I wanted to become an electrical engineer.
I met this mistress called Physics and she showed me how to love. She was always on my mind and just when I thought I understood her, she showed me new worlds.
One evening when we were supposed to head for basketball practice it started to rain.
I stayed in class.
My friend and classmate, Maurice, AKA Morio, had brought one of the books our physics teacher had recommended. It was The Principles of Physics by M. Nelkon.
To this day, I have never known how I bulldozed through that book. By the time I was waking up, it was supper time. I was on page 66.
I didn’t read any other book on physics that year.
That evening, I forgot I was to report for practice, but the rain had already damaged the basketball court. Lucky me.
That’s how much I loved physics.
I still do, though I later discovered that we were only being taught classical physics, much to my disappointment.
I knew there and then — if I were to pick a topic, it had to have aspects of physics in it.
It felt so much better despite parental pressures to do the course they felt was better for you.
Everyone knew I was going to do electrical engineering. My love for the subject was evident among my schoolmates.
In short, it felt so much better than the wrong thing.
Then I got to my final year of high school and my biology teacher sparked doubt
Towards the end of form 4, I contemplated being a doctor.
This was after the biology teacher brought to class a full skeleton.
A whole skeleton!
I was blown away.
Some of the bones were circulated throughout the class. There and then, I started contemplating doing medicine. I had to force myself to see aspects of physics in medicine.
It would only have to be physics which would convince me.
Funny enough, I also loved building things. Just as I was graduating high school, I contemplated being an architect. I was too fickle back then.
Anyway, there is so much physics that goes into building structures. Architecture would have been a good profession. But it came third.
At the top, two competed — medicine and surgery versus electrical engineering.
But when you’re born in a country where success means pursuing medicine, so many voices whisper — loudly — into your year.
Our situation at home and the advice of my mother pushed me to do medicine. I don’t regret ever doing it.
I stayed on campus for years. It freed me from the pressure of searching for a job or the afterward tedium it brings. Plus, jobs, especially the first ones after graduation, have a tendency to consume you and veer you from pursuing your interests.
Thus, I made the most of my time on campus while it lasted.
It was a meditation for me
Surgery.
It had to either be neurosurgery or cardiothoracic surgery. It was the naïve side talking. But not too naïve.
Neuroanatomy was my favourite topic. It felt like a breeze for me. Likely because I enjoyed it. I could say the same for physics.
Cristina Yang was an inspiration. I loved how she talked about the heart.
What to do! What to do?!?
Then, towards my final year, I started liking the principles of the management of fractures. There was a lot of physics involved in it.
I had to meditate on my decision.
In the meantime, I was reading works by E. O. Wilson and Lynn Margulis. Before I knew it, I was in a field I had never, NEVER imagined.
Now I see, it’s the simple things
It wasn’t meditation that brought me to this area.
It was curiosity. An unquenchable thirst for the intricate details explaining evolutionary trends, mysteries, and ever-shifting theories of life.
I fell in love with the small things.
Bacteria, viruses and fungi. Even parasites.
Looking back, there is only one textbook I have ever finished and which I loved. It was Paniker’s Textbook of Parasitology.
I didn’t even know it.
I have loved sessions with medical students in the human anatomy lab, but I have never read Cunningham’s from the beginning to the end.
But I read a book on microbiology back-to-back, effortlessly.
By the time I was almost finishing my final year, I knew it just had to be the small things. What biology calls the simple organisms. The simple things.
In reality, they are not simple.
- E. Coli has a nose for the presence of lactulose.
- The kissing bug has a stretch reflex which tells it when it’s best to start transforming through metamorphosis.
- Wolbachia can transform males into females.
This is a field filled with wonder.
I never thought I’d see the day
My training was in human anatomy, medicine, and surgery.
Now I want to perform the surgery of the kind once done by Tracey Sonneborn, to reverse the cilia on the cell walls, and see how it translates to phenotypic inheritance.
When I tell my med school classmates about my interests, they hardly believe me.
But a scientist is one who is interested in the simple things.
It turns out I did become a rogue, mad scientist after all.
