of love, life and living it up
Saturday, June 10, 2006
heard it through the grave pine
there was this one incident that ocurred while i was in high school that made me a believer of the fact that your life is pretty much an open book while you're in boarding school. we usually slept in dorms, numbers ranging from eight to twenty and also in "cubes" which was occupied by two girls. that usually meant that it was damn near impossible to be private about your activities. if you were the kind who woke up at ungodly hours to study people in your dorm, the prefects and the matron probably knew. if you had alcohol hidden in the depths of those metal boxes masquaerading as suitcases (for anti theft purposes) you were the go to person if people wanted to get high. if you wet your bed, people probably knew about it. if you talked or walked in your sleep people would make fun of you.
SIDEBAR: there was this one quiet girl in my dorm, she slept nine on the dot every night and by 10.30 we usually knew what was disturbing her cos she used to talk, loudly. actually she once sang a whole song in her sleep and despite the fact that we were rolling around laughing she went ahead and finished her performance and couldn't remember a thing the next morning. those are stories to be told another day)
there was one saturday night in particular when we were told to stop doing whatever what we were doing and make it to our beds ASAP. when this happened, this meant that someone was missing. the best and fastest way to find out who was missing was to make everyone sit on their beds and then the three matrons would go round and find out who was missing because they knew who was meant to be where when it came to sleeping arrangements. this didn't happen very often cos being smack in the middle of tea plantations 2.5 km from the main road where would someone go? it was pretty late anyway and most people were either asleep, studying or up just beating stories (you can add me to that last category)
apparently, one of the matrons had heard that there were two form four girls who had spent most of the evening at a male teachers house (you were forbidden from even going anywhere near teachers' houses, especially if they were male) drinking and one of them was having "relations" with him. when they found out who was missing the head matron went ahead and ambushed the teachers house in search of the two. allegedly (this story had changed formats several times before it trickled down to the masses) she found only the one having relations with the teacher cos the other one was apparently making her way back to the dorms when the headcount was being done. the matron dragged the girl out hair first and took her to the headmistress' house. the teacher was kicked out the very next day - they even availed a pickup so that he would be gone faster - and the girl was expelled. moral of the story? there is no such thing as a secret while you are in boarding school. someone always knows and if its big enough, someone in the administration will always find out.
when i take into account my experience that everything in boarding school is pretty much an open secret i was baffled and saddened when i read this story. at first all i could think about is if he regularly slept in a classrom as the article states then wouldn't have someone found out? i know for a fact that if i had attemped to sleep in a classroom i would have been found by the watchmen who would have taken me to the matrons house and from then on it would have been trouble all the way. maybe i am speaking from my experience in an all girls' situation, i don't know if it's different in a boy's school.
the article also states that the time between he being raped and his admission into hospital was two weeks because of the trauma involved. this is no fault of his parents though, because when he told his mother about it they immediately sought medical attention. my beef here is with the school.
he reported it to the dormitory master and yet nothing was done. he even knows who attacked him by name and the school still saw it fit to keep the whole thing under wraps. i am particularly disturbed by the fact that when his parents were summoned to the school they were told that he had been taken ill. taken ill? is this the kind of response that should be coming from someone who for nine a half months a year is part of a group that should be like a surrogate parent to hundreds of students? isn't it his job to ensure that when a student is endangered that he take the neccessary steps to punish those in the wrong and to protect those who are vistimised? why were the police not called? and as per the news report he had yet to summon the relevant officials from the ministry of education and the police had to start their own investigations without a report being filed.
i was, and still am disturbed by the whole situation. if he was sleeping in class becuase it was not the first time that it had happened, why didn't the school see the warning flags? surely the fact that a student would rather spend night after night in a cold and drafty classroom should have been an indication that there was something very wrong. what makes me even more mad and disappointed was the fact that he did tell someone in authority what was going on and yet no action was taken. those he shared a dorm with were bound to have noticed that he was consistently did not spend nights in his bed. im guessing (and someone in the know correct me here if i'm wrong) that he did not have a room all to himself so when his attackers tied him to the bed and brutallised him did anyone hear him? if the school was reluctant to tell his parents their son's version of the story because they doubted its validity why didn't someone think to ask the other dorm members what they knew? it sounds to me like they were hoping that if they swept it under the rug it would all go away. rape is a very serious and henious crime and why the school would inadvertently shelter the perpetrators by their lack of action is beyond me.
as i am not privy to up to date news on this story any updates and corrections are welcome.
i hope that after the teenager's five attackers are charged that an investigation is done into the upper hill's administrative system and that heads roll because the way they handled this was appalling to the extreme. being professionals they should have handled this better, all it would have taken was compassion and common sense. another thing that needs to be looked into is how students can be allowed to run rampant and terrorise other students in what is meant to be a safe learning environment. i have this sinking feeling though (and i hope against hope that i am wrong) that this will be the topic of discussion for a while and then it will soon be forgotten.
EDIT:
and here i was already formulating the second edition of "on drugs? please!". i thought that the the upper hill administration would at least have the decency and common sense to try and explain what happened to the young man. i figured that they would fall back on the old madawa ya kulevya routine. well, they have saved me the effort because according to mr. gaturu, the parents teachers association chairman, the incident did not happen at all! you know, because the reputation of the school is at stake and horror of horrors its good name is being dragged through the mud. is he out of his mind? is the alleged legacy of the school worth the security and well being of the victim and other students of the school? has he no absolutely no shame? i am angered at the way the people who should be speaking out against this and carrying out investigations namely the parents and teachers have decided to deal with this situation.
SIDEBAR: there was this one quiet girl in my dorm, she slept nine on the dot every night and by 10.30 we usually knew what was disturbing her cos she used to talk, loudly. actually she once sang a whole song in her sleep and despite the fact that we were rolling around laughing she went ahead and finished her performance and couldn't remember a thing the next morning. those are stories to be told another day)
there was one saturday night in particular when we were told to stop doing whatever what we were doing and make it to our beds ASAP. when this happened, this meant that someone was missing. the best and fastest way to find out who was missing was to make everyone sit on their beds and then the three matrons would go round and find out who was missing because they knew who was meant to be where when it came to sleeping arrangements. this didn't happen very often cos being smack in the middle of tea plantations 2.5 km from the main road where would someone go? it was pretty late anyway and most people were either asleep, studying or up just beating stories (you can add me to that last category)
apparently, one of the matrons had heard that there were two form four girls who had spent most of the evening at a male teachers house (you were forbidden from even going anywhere near teachers' houses, especially if they were male) drinking and one of them was having "relations" with him. when they found out who was missing the head matron went ahead and ambushed the teachers house in search of the two. allegedly (this story had changed formats several times before it trickled down to the masses) she found only the one having relations with the teacher cos the other one was apparently making her way back to the dorms when the headcount was being done. the matron dragged the girl out hair first and took her to the headmistress' house. the teacher was kicked out the very next day - they even availed a pickup so that he would be gone faster - and the girl was expelled. moral of the story? there is no such thing as a secret while you are in boarding school. someone always knows and if its big enough, someone in the administration will always find out.
when i take into account my experience that everything in boarding school is pretty much an open secret i was baffled and saddened when i read this story. at first all i could think about is if he regularly slept in a classrom as the article states then wouldn't have someone found out? i know for a fact that if i had attemped to sleep in a classroom i would have been found by the watchmen who would have taken me to the matrons house and from then on it would have been trouble all the way. maybe i am speaking from my experience in an all girls' situation, i don't know if it's different in a boy's school.
the article also states that the time between he being raped and his admission into hospital was two weeks because of the trauma involved. this is no fault of his parents though, because when he told his mother about it they immediately sought medical attention. my beef here is with the school.
he reported it to the dormitory master and yet nothing was done. he even knows who attacked him by name and the school still saw it fit to keep the whole thing under wraps. i am particularly disturbed by the fact that when his parents were summoned to the school they were told that he had been taken ill. taken ill? is this the kind of response that should be coming from someone who for nine a half months a year is part of a group that should be like a surrogate parent to hundreds of students? isn't it his job to ensure that when a student is endangered that he take the neccessary steps to punish those in the wrong and to protect those who are vistimised? why were the police not called? and as per the news report he had yet to summon the relevant officials from the ministry of education and the police had to start their own investigations without a report being filed.
i was, and still am disturbed by the whole situation. if he was sleeping in class becuase it was not the first time that it had happened, why didn't the school see the warning flags? surely the fact that a student would rather spend night after night in a cold and drafty classroom should have been an indication that there was something very wrong. what makes me even more mad and disappointed was the fact that he did tell someone in authority what was going on and yet no action was taken. those he shared a dorm with were bound to have noticed that he was consistently did not spend nights in his bed. im guessing (and someone in the know correct me here if i'm wrong) that he did not have a room all to himself so when his attackers tied him to the bed and brutallised him did anyone hear him? if the school was reluctant to tell his parents their son's version of the story because they doubted its validity why didn't someone think to ask the other dorm members what they knew? it sounds to me like they were hoping that if they swept it under the rug it would all go away. rape is a very serious and henious crime and why the school would inadvertently shelter the perpetrators by their lack of action is beyond me.
as i am not privy to up to date news on this story any updates and corrections are welcome.
i hope that after the teenager's five attackers are charged that an investigation is done into the upper hill's administrative system and that heads roll because the way they handled this was appalling to the extreme. being professionals they should have handled this better, all it would have taken was compassion and common sense. another thing that needs to be looked into is how students can be allowed to run rampant and terrorise other students in what is meant to be a safe learning environment. i have this sinking feeling though (and i hope against hope that i am wrong) that this will be the topic of discussion for a while and then it will soon be forgotten.
EDIT:
and here i was already formulating the second edition of "on drugs? please!". i thought that the the upper hill administration would at least have the decency and common sense to try and explain what happened to the young man. i figured that they would fall back on the old madawa ya kulevya routine. well, they have saved me the effort because according to mr. gaturu, the parents teachers association chairman, the incident did not happen at all! you know, because the reputation of the school is at stake and horror of horrors its good name is being dragged through the mud. is he out of his mind? is the alleged legacy of the school worth the security and well being of the victim and other students of the school? has he no absolutely no shame? i am angered at the way the people who should be speaking out against this and carrying out investigations namely the parents and teachers have decided to deal with this situation.
24 Comments:
Spicebear,
First of all let me say thank you for your mature and reasoned approach to blogging about this. There are many that could learn a thing or two about that from you. Thanks.
The points you bring out have been jumping through my head constantly. The school failed in its duty of care to the boy, it is responsibilities to the parents and as a result a life is damaged in what may be an incalculable way.
The whole story reeks of cover up. Like you said housemasters and headmasters know everything that is going on in the school. Yet they did not act.
There is something strange going on in Kenyan schools, especially in the boys’ schools. Violence beyond comprehension. I’m in the middle of drafting a post on this issue.
Let us see what the investigation brings.
Have a good day.
spicey i love stories from high school I cannot get enough of them so that story is funny.
Girls schools are more concerned about the whereabouts of the inhabitants and a little more vigilant; for reasons which i cannot understand maybe along the lines that girls are more delicate and stuff.
But still there are incidents that pass unnoticed, like the girls who give birth in toilets and no one even suspected that they were pregnant in the first place.
I was talking to a high school teacher who teaches in a boys school and got the impression that there is a lot of laxity in terms of keeping track of what goes on within the compounds.
Then of course the usual "watoto wa siku hizi" and an emphatic shaking of the head when the bubble is burst. The headteacher has a lot of explaining to do, but like you said the usual drugs thingie will be dangled in the air though I think one has to be high on something to assault another like that.
Have you noticed too that there are more arson attacks lately? There is something amiss in schools nowadays, which should be addressed urgently.
Spicey, like you I went through the same rigours of boarding school, and you couldnt even wear a teeny earring without the whole school, including the teachers and the headmistress, knowing about it. But maybe times have changed and it might be different for boys cos they can look after themselves - apparently
I am mad about the whole issue, and this brings to mind another article I read in the nation sometime back where this guy was sick, and was left to his own until his friends raised money to put him in hospital, then the authorities sent him home where he died in two days - how is that for letting your kids into the responsibility of adults that would rather look away and ignore students who 'pretend' to be sick to get attention.
And, I am angry at all these people - they know themselves - that are going around using this as a 'lets bash gay people' routine. What in the world are they thinking.
I could write a whole book on why this mindset is 'crap' but I think I would just be pandering to their stereotypical bullshit - so I will spare everyone
Spice, I couldn't have put it any better than you have. Kudos on focusing on the facts and not the off shoots. I read the article and it bothered me so much. Like you said rape has no excuse. In my anger I would advocate for the perpetrators to be raped in the same fashion but that would be contradicting myself on all levels. Still some sort of punishment needs to be meted out on all involved in the acts directly or indirectly. All schools, whether girls or boys should be subjected to the highest forms of security regardless of sex. Some serious repercussions need to be implemented on the school admin and the students as a lesson to bullies everywhere in Kenya in particular. Such actions should not be tolerated.
spicebear,
it's the same in like all girls' boarding schools. Your roommates were accountable for your wereabouts. Some chicks sometimes got busted sharing a bed (my roomate was one of them)and by the next evening,the rumour mill would churn out different versions of the story.
oh i forgot to say: LOL! @the direct swa-eng translation beating stories- chapa storoz. long time
@ mental
the whole violence thing has got me thinking as well. is it that violence is on the increase in boarding schools or that it's more widely reported?
another thing is why the school would want to cover it up in the first place. unfortunately, now that the armenians and their shenanigans are the topic of discussion this might unfortunately be rellegated to the back burner for a while which is sad because someone in the school needs to be held accountable.
@ prou
incidences of girls giving birth in toilets and aborting them using jik and whatnot happen enough to justify the whole manual pregnancy issue which is another issue i have.
girl's are considered "delicate goods" so as you said, that may be the reason that schools are so aware of their where abouts. the 'boys will be boys' mantra doesn't help matters either because serious matters tend to be down played or put down to general ukorofi. arsons have been on the increase? really? that news hasn't trickled down to my part of the world yet.
i hope our predictions are wrong prou, lakini this has all the signs of teenage drug use gone wrong excuse written all over it
@ guess
that story of students having to take one of their own to hospital is so sad and shouldn't have happened at all. this is becoming a trend where school authorities deliberately neglect their wards in the name god-knows-what then turn around and blame everyone and everything else.
i too was very disturbed by that whole "let the gays explain themseleves and defend one of their own" argument. it will not bring us the answers to the questions we ask, which in my case is how the laxity of the school has not caused more of an outcry and why teachers and "counsellors" who are trained for this could be so noncholant about rape. like you, i have deviated from this whole line of thought and i've stopped trying to explain it to people. it won't change the fact that a travesty has occured and that someone needs to be held accountable.
@ kabinti
you being up a good point kabinti, security in schools should be available to both boys and girls. no life is more important than the other and the protection of the physical and mental health of students not to mention general well being should not be something that applies to only one group.
@ kelitu
lol, there were strict rules about "sleeping twice" in the same bed. we were responsible for one another for sure - if someone went missing everyone in the dorm would be held accountable. there was no excuse for not knowing if someone in your dorm slept elsewhere.
i'm always telling people that "so and so and i were beating stories ... " and people who don't know that it's a direct translation usually go huh? it hilarizes me to no end.
Hey Spicey,
Your school had funny people who sang during the night. Aaii i have chekad.
Anyhow i hope we get to the bottom of this grave matter. I wonder how many people this has been happening to.
@ shiroh
it was one of those moments that you wish you had something to capture the moment.
if upper hill chose to be "discreet" about the incident, i wonder how many other administrations have done so and yet never been reported.
Laxity and cover ups when it somes to school fuck ups is not something thats new or looks lik its gonna stop anytime soon. When I was in high school a student vanished for two weeks. the folks kept coming to look for him but the head would always ficha the story. His corpse was found on the compound in having been decomposing for those two weeks. all the head had to say was that the guy was a crook and was probably killed in some drug deal. Just how his corpse hapened to have been found not more than 25 metres from a rather busy link road in the school has never been explained. nor why he seemed to have been killed where he was found. Just goes to show how in Kenya the school name goes way before the sanctity of human life. Sad sad day for Kenya.
teddy that sounds like Changes to me...was a sad storo that one
I was soo ashamed to see one tripple-double-bellied PTA chairman Gataru sit on camera and rant about how the boy was not in school when all this happened shame on him and can someone tell him that next in line is the son or the grandson for he feels he can cover up then not forever that fisi will come out and eat him.
Assult is soo prominet in school and the teachers have not braced themselves to talk about it or act on it.
Now sweetie I just discovered that we went through the same process of growth in school. I was the idlers side and my cube was the corner base of crooks. Even the Matron and teachers knew Mt Suswa just above Longonot Cube 7 insert me always booked when there was a boo or demo.
I remember when I was in form two we powered for the suspension of the head girl who was grooving with the headmistress son and she came back to be demoted.
I know in girls schools those chicks wh used to steal test tubes from the lab the bigger size and do their thing in the night then the sciences teachers amuad a raid people were netted like fish and katad kuni and nyasi..
Hey sweery i tagged you check inmy page and keep it moving
It would be in bad form for me not to comment on this when you had the courtesy to comment on my post on the same issue.I admit that a comment by someone who is being "harassed" by KBW "leftists" took the whole focus from the gravity of the crime and the role of the school admin to it being a debate about how gay people should defend themselves, that was not my point at all.Anyhoo why is it that in our society no-one ever wants to bite the bullet and take responsibility.
It is disgusting that the Admin are even doubting the incident took place.If something like this doesn't make the admin of the school change then I fear for their future students.Overlooking bullying just encourages it and doesnt make it go away.I know this isn't the first incident of its' kind as I have heard of such before but few make it to press or the right parties who can address the wrongs.
I think it is about time changes were implemented in how we train our future school administrators and how they relate to the students.
@ Nakeel
I recall we used to make fun of chics of a certain school telling them that they had rectangular test tubes in their lab and that their visitors couldn't bring them carrots and cucumbers!
@ mr teddy
i remember that the first time you told me that story i was in shock. no way would a school go that far to protect its good name. after i reading the way the school has said that the claims are "malicious" i now agree with you. its so uneccessary, because its not like the students are inconsequential. things will probably have to get worse before something of substance is really done about it.
@ kabinti
yup, t'was changes.
@ nakeel
the question i would have had for mr. gaturu is even if the bo was not in school asthey allege then where was he? they cannot absolve themselves from blame either way, for the duration of the 3 months that he is in school for second term they are responsible for him and they have failed him in the worst way possible.
as you said, he needs to realise that it could just as easily have been his son or daughter in that situation. how would he feel if the school denied that the incident took place? this just defies comprehension.
stories of test tubes are many in a girl's boarding school. you can add carrots and bananas to that equation too.
p.s
so you tagged me? i'll get on it!
@ aco
the training that these teachers undergo is woefully inadequate and the way some of them end up being counsellors is beyond me. counselling where i went to high school usually meant a sermon and prayer meeting which always made wonder what they would do should a muslim want some guidance.
as for the comment that turned things around on your post on this very same subject all i can say is that there is a time, a place and a way to do everything. as my dad - and he is very much pentacostal- always tells me (goodness, those long lectures sunk in to an extent) if a country is at war a security analyst may very well believe that it's under seige from the devil but holding an exorcism wont help matters much. what they would need to do is secure the borders, have strategies in place and find ways to protect wanainchi. you can see where i'm going with this. the thing that is most important right now is finding out who is to blame and ensuring that what happened at upper hill does not happen again especially when you factor in the perpetrators who are yet to be caught.
i chose to attribute your coment for taking responsibility and biting the bullet to the PTA and board of governors cos if its the other way round then we will just be repeating ourselves all over again and as we both agreed, it is not the issue at hand.
in an ideal world the changes would take effect immediately but considering the climate in kenya right now that change might be a long way coming.
i read your blog and all i could think of was were we in the same school or what.just that we did not have 3 matrons in ours.but everything else sounded all too familiar.
High school was quite a fabulous time i'd say n girls look out after each other.There is no way a student can sleep in class and a whole bunch of dorm mates r quiet about it.There is always that spy amongst them who lets it slip to the necessary authorities.(thank God for snitches huh??)
I wish boys would ape this and look out for each other cause this can happen to anyone of them. And i am so sure the students in the neighbouring dorms must have heard a clue what was going on.
whatever has happened to our society, why can't the administration take charge of the situation and act instead of hiding the pepetrators of such an atrocious thing. sexual harrasment is never easy on anyone. this is a real tragedy that makes me so sad and loose faith in the entire administration. i am waiting to see what will be done in this case.....and i do hope they take serious action for such a heinous offence.which cannot be punishment enough for those students to fathom the impact of what they did.
i wonder where exactly the problem is in our society.
@ Aco, enyewe I have heard it too about the testtubes....then there was the vibe that girls schools never had banans for lunch...only cylindrical fruits.
@spice...tea plantation...kotet?
Just wondering
@ inane
who knew that those snitches in high school actually had a purpose? the benefit of hindsight!
i'll be following up on this too, i hope that it won't be forgotten because this is just a sypmtom of a much bigger problem.
hehe, the more i post about high school the more people who went to that place pop up!
@ potash
that would explain why the lab assistants used to be fanatical when it came to accounting for test tubes. that and why they would out paraffin in our food.
kotet? good lord you are almost right on the money (i have now given it away, haven't i? ah well. so much for mystery)
@ mental
well, since y'all keep tagging me i'll stop procastinating and get on with it.
That hurts. Why people don't do the appropriate thing is hard to bear sometimes.
@ tim rice
i totally agree, they should have done the right thing by that young man.
One of my cousins goes to school there. Or rather went. The school denying that anything took place was the last straw.
Those boys who did this are still on the loose and may strike again.
Why will people never learn that to do nothing when such things happens means that we are all guilty when the next person is attacjed?
@ m
it is so sad that there has to be a next time before the fact that there is a problem. the way things are going, that is inevitable.
it seems that people have already forgotten what went on in upper hill. all of us will be to blame if we don't learn anything form this.
Still shaking my head in disbelief! How could the school admin act like nothing happened while it's clear the poor boy was traumatised; physically (ans sexually), emotionally & mos def psychologically!? To protect the reputation of the school and allow the goons to keep preying other kids? No way should this happen!!
For one who went to day schools, stores from/about boarding schools always had a comedic effect to them but this one would definitely have disturbed me a lot as a student.
@ akiey
most stories about boarding schools are funny, especially in hindsight. but the fact that they have gone out of their way to deny that it even happened goes a long way to show the kind of rot that exists in boarding schools.
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