NEW! Do You Know What Your Child Is Doing In That Hostel?
Written by Martine Mutwiri |
On admission to a college in Nairobi parents rent a hostel for their daughters if they can’t find accommodation in a relative’s house. Hostels are preferred to private residence (or SQs) of parents because they’ve the reputation of being relatively cheaper, decent, strict, and tame, also secure. Most of the girls coming to City for higher education are in their teenage – just finished Form Four. Parents want them to be ‘somewhere’ so that they are not ‘spoilt’ or get pregnant in the village or estate.
Parents know hostels have rules that govern the conduct of their growing tenants, so they think. Most of all sexual relationship is prohibited in the hostel. Tenants and their parents agree on the terms of engagement and set regulations. However, the new tenants are settled she is quickly socialized by her new community members who exert negative influence. But it does not take long before the set rules are infringed. Sooner than later the teenage tenant is socialized and initiated into the underground world of the City by their older sisters. Before long she’ll one more victim the snares of the moneyed married old men. What would disappoint many parents of these teenage college students is the breach of trust by the management of the hostels. The girl is brought to the hostel with the understanding the caretaker would keep an eye on the girl when they are away from home. Soon, the new arrival learns that you can sneak out on Friday evening and be back on Sunday nights. The caretaker will know and will take no interest where you are going to, whoever you are going out with, or whatever you are going to do.
“The caretaker is always around when the big daddy drives in to pick up girls,” a frustrated friend staying in one of the hostels in Pangani told me. She revealed that there’s much more going on in the hostel despite the strict rule on paper. Teenage girls use money to manipulate the caretakers who let them do whatever they please. You find one of the rules in the hostel reading ‘No alcohol in the hostel’ or ‘No loud music’ but you’ll find beer all over the room, or hear loud music in the next room. Focused students feel inconvenienced and find it hard to concentrate when studying. Sometimes the occasions for temptation arise and those not so strong fall victim of drunken orgies in the hostels.
Do the hostel caretakers know the teenagers are still growing up and in need of guidance and character formation? Do they feel the weight of the responsibility parents have placed on their shoulders? Do they know how unhappy a parent would be if they knew how they lose their children to drug and sex in the City hostels? Or to them, is it just about money? Parents entrust their daughters to hostel caretakers trusting that they are in safe hands; their hearts are broken when their daughter returns home from a college empty handed – no certificate, but pregnant, sick or wasted by drugs.
Well, in some instances, parents have themselves to blame. They fail in their roles to provide financially and moral support to their children when in college leaving them desperate, miserable and broke in the City. Occasional phone calls are insufficient. You need to visit them, see how they are and supply them with basic needs. Your constant wise, encouraging and caring words are needed by your children.
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