Confessions of a gay Kenyan student

“There was this older student who singled me out for bullying when I joined a leading secondary school some years back. John, a prefect of my private boarding house was muscular and quite handsome in a rugged way but he started picking on me the day I started. The abuse was mainly verbal insults and sometimes physical (slaps and kicks), generally making my life a misery.

One early morning I caught John peeping at me from the next cubicle as I took a shower. He had that hungry look in his eyes, the sound of slapping as he soaped himself vigorously up and down. I see that look even today in some older men who lurk in the bars here in Nairobi sipping warm lager from the bottle as they ogle at younger men from dimly lit alcoves. That’s when I decided to teach John a lesson.

Days later on a Saturday evening John came to me in the common room as we watched TV after supper and whispered hoarsely, ‘Hey you, I’ve got a half bottle of vodo, come see me in my room after lights out.’ I knew what he wanted and he was taking a big risk – and not just with the alcohol. He looked so pathetic and that’s when it dawned on me that I had the upper hand so I whispered back to him: ‘I’ll be busy scrubbing my feet as my toes are itching so bad, I think I’ve got athlete’s foot. After that I’ll have my mug of bournvita with milk and then go to bed.’ I’m so busy galfriend. All these years later I still delight to recall his face crushed in disappointment.

The bullying stopped then and John spent the rest of the term chasing after me like a puppy. I kept him keen with my choirboy smile, a dose of slow sleepy eyes and the occasional flash of my toned teen cakes in the showers pretending to drop and then slowly pick up my soap when it was just the two of us. It got ridiculous when he started writing me love notes and leaving them under my pillow in the dormitory (a conundrum for 'dirty room'). Then one evening before we closed for the holidays when he caught me flicking through a much-thumbed copy of Tits & Clits that the cook had lent to my friend Martin, I let John blow me. I’ve never been a heartless monster, I do my bit for charity and I didn’t want him to do something reckless that would see him get expelled that’s why I gave in.

So on that moonless March evening John, Senior Prefect and Rugby Captain went on his knees on the cobbled walkway behind the physics lab and finished me off. All I remember is watching him slavering like a rabid dog on a hot day in Nanyuki. So desperately heartbreaking.”


As told to Tamaku, names changed to protect the guilty now married with kids.