By Iminza Keboge
Published February 21, 2019
‘Sexually-Transmitted Marks‘ or ‘Marks for Sex’ are phrases that are becoming familiar in Kenya alongside equally disturbing news headlines like ‘Teachers Blacklisted By TSC For Sex Scandals’, ‘Teachers Sacked over Sexual Harassment’ or ‘Teachers Interdicted over Exam Cheating’.
The term ‘teacher’ was for a long time associated with virtue, respect and everything admirable. ‘Civilisation’ or ‘Development’ began with ‘teacher’ who was looked upon as ‘adviser’, ‘counsellor’ and ‘guide’ in the morals of society. ‘Teacher’ was a trusted person who could do no wrong and whose opinion was considered sacred.
This could explain why teachers were among those who led the struggle for liberation from colonial powers across Africa and ended up as presidents, prime ministers and ministers of newly independent African states.
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Though ‘teacher’ or ‘mwalimu’ is still a term of respect or veneration in East Africa, the trust once associated with it has been eroded after male teachers started to have sexual flings with their pupils and students.
This sets the stage for Slow Down My Teacher, a 120-page play by JPR Ochieng-Odero that was published by Acacia Publishers of Nairobi 18 years ago today.
Some 50 years ago, the late Joseph Kamaru, a leading Gikuyu Benga musician, recorded a best-selling song titled Ndari ya Mwarimu (teacher’s darling in English) in which a female student laments the situation she finds herself in and accuses her teacher of taking advantage of his privileged position to misuse her.
Slow Down My Teacher, a play n three parts, looks at sexual affairs between male teachers and female learners from primary to higher education levels, examining the various forces that lead to the development of such relationships.
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JPR Ochieng-Odero, a thespian with experience as an actor, director and writer, employs the flashback to paint deprivation and want among the poor, betrayal and selfishness as practised against the weak and vulnerable, deceit and connivance among leaders, and resilience and strength of determination in the human spirit.
The first movement or part of the play, titled Blossoming, shows, through fast dialogue, how poverty and deprivation coupled with the desire to to acquire education have made parents virtually mortgage their children by putting them at the mercy of unscrupulous teachers.
Destruction, the second movement, has the teacher disciplined upon the discovery of the affair between him and the student.
In Healing, the third movement, the girl is in a tertiary institution where her teacher lover now lectures.
