On Boarding Schools in Kenya

I will never take my children to boarding school. At Lugulu Boarding Primary School, I was molested. A knife placed in my bed was removed by another boy who got wind of the plan to harm me. Kakamega High School was better, but still, others suffered.

I still know the guy who molested me and placed a knife in my bed. I confronted him openly on facebook about Lugulu. By then, he was in the United States. I later went to the US for studies. Not once did I remember him and Lugulu. I was busy studying and travelling across the US.

His brother is the owner of a high-end club in Nairobi. He had seen my bitter post on Facebook. He wrote me and apologised on behalf of his brother. He had been a witness to how his brother molested me in Lugulu. Tonight, I could activate #KOT Intelligence Bureau, but I am ....

older and wiser and I am not the kind of soul to use the little power in my hands to cause people trouble. If anything I try to help people whenever I can. So I forgive him. Life goes on, I am healed ~somehow. Beyond molestation, boarding schools are lonely, mean and sick spaces.

In boarding schools, cartels thrive. Mafia-like groups thrive. They collect 'taxes' or you pay voluntarily, sometimes unconciously to be in their good books. After 'visiting day', inequalities can be seen through sights, smells, tastes and sounds. Silent loneliness or happy chat.

When you are constantly harassed and molested, if you are lucky, you can report it and your molester is warned or expelled. Yet, like in prison, you start watching your back. 'Opening day' is cartels trouble and 'closing day' is trouble as you await to present your good?! grades.

You learn to experience and accept forms of loneliness that children of your age should never experience. You automatically tuck yourself into bed for so many evenings in a year. Sometimes, you lie awake and remember mama and other things. You count days but what about grades.

Yes, boarding school keeps children away from TV and household issues, but it also silently robs children of the warmth of family, the cuddles of our mothers (and some fathers) and the opportunity for parents to -hopefully- be the best examples for their children.

It helps one learn to survive. Fuck survival. Excuse my Greek. We are here to live. If you analyze keenly, you realize that we learn survival from our families. I went to learn. To study. Education. Skills. Then a job. Being molested did not add to my grades or teach me anything.

Boarding school experiences are subjective. If you had a good experience, good for you. If you had a bad experience, only you and your God know what you keep silent and what you say. My experiences are those of a boy who was taken to Lugulu because it was a good school. 'Good.'

If you spend some time going through people's responses below, you will shudder. Some people were sexually harassed by their teachers, some say they don't miss going home as a result, some do not miss their parents, some have not forgiven their parents, some were so young etc.