Ethnic stereotypes are not necessarily a bad thing — it is one thing to be stereotyped as liking the good life, dressing well, wearing the latest Armani suit and scent, driving the latest BMW, having a penchant for speaking the Queen’s English, or indulging in kuku porno.

This is the stuff of bar-room banter, oiling the wheels of social discourse. I have no quarrel with that. I can see the coy smile on my friend Oti’s lips.

I would rather be guilty of eating too much ingokho any time. The gurgling noises Marete makes as he imitates my Somali speech, then asking me “what did I say in Somali? and my witty rejoinder “my aunt is a cow” — that also I can take. It is good fun, we all laugh and that is it.

However, there is nothing to lighten up about being “Osama’s buddy”. At the height of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a lecturer in an oral examination had the cheek to ask me if I knew the Al-Qaeda leader.

For those who have been through the University of Nairobi’s medical school, oral examinations are traumatic.

There are usually three categories of students; those whose performance is outstanding and the examiners are trying to make up their minds whether to give them a distinction or not; those who are in the middle and the oral examination is just a confirmation that you are indeed C material — a middling; the third, and most-dreaded category and every med-schooler’s nightmare is those who are borderline and are a whisker away from failure.