HIGH SCHOOL RELOADED

There is this picture from the future that keeps causing ruckus in my always sober mind. It is about two high school girls walking into an afternoon Math Class where there are detectors at the door, only they are not metal but skirt length detectors.  The machine buzzes as one girl passes through the door and the Professor shouts at her: Wewe hiyo skirt yako ni long sana, kwani hujui kushona Mutula? (since it is the future, sheng will be widely accepted by teachers).

This is the picture of high school reloaded courtesy of one Mr. Mutula Kilonzo, the Minister for Education.

Now Mr. Minister may have become a favourite among high school girls. If he were to be lucky twice, an old newspaper cutting of him may find its way to a faded dormitory wall beside the domineering poster of Kenyan heart throb Nick Mutuma. The students would pay homage to him like he was the best thing ever to happen to a ‘deprived’ school girl.

In an attempt to play the hero to ‘misunderstood’ Rwathia Secondary School girls, Mr. Mutula announced that schools should move away from the traditional skirt length and adopt a more revealing length: the short skirt.

“Why do you dress a school girl like a nun. These girls do not want to be nuns, they want to be modern like Mutula?” he asked amid cheers from school girls who were probably thinking: phew! Finally the heavens are on our side! If at that moment there was ever an award with an awkward name such as Defender of the Weak Mr. Mutula would have clinched such a title unopposed.

Mutula’s endorsement of the short has elicited heated debate in the social media with the same intensity as the escapades of Miguna Miguna. Which begs the question: Has Kenya never caught the eye of Hollywood blockbuster movie makers looking to shoot controversial reality TV?

Mutula’s statement is making priests and other church leaders spend hours in their prayer chamber while burning incense and sprinkling holy water in an attempt to drive away the ‘demons’ that may have possessed the honourable Minister.

But it’s not all in bad taste for some people I know; some of my friends from high school who would do anything to go back to school if Mutula’s suggestions were to be implemented.

Back in the day we yearned for miniskirts, even cut our longer ones and folded them a little higher , which always had unpleasant repercussions of course. Like cutting a huge portion of a mosquito-infested dormant play field. The  system was tough to fight under the military rules imposed by the administration and so, afraid of ‘Madam’ and her laws we stopped. After all four years was a short time!

This Mr. Mutula is the saviour we waited for in those four painful years but now I can only frown at the thought of my innocent kid sister wearing a brief skirt to school. Those rude and ill mannered neighbourhood boys will never stop whistling as she passes by!

In an attempt to save face among Kenyans, he paraded his proposed skirt for the school girl in front of a dozen of cameras. But we all know that is the size that has been worn for years; that is the size I wore while in high school. And the other sample which he claimed to be against was not a skirt, it was the size of a dress unless you blessed with a great height.