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A school dormitory on fire. [File, Standard]
There are few sounds more terrifying to a parent than a midnight phone call from a boarding school. In Kenya today, that call has become a national nightmare.
The recent wave of school fires has transformed ordinary parents into reluctant prophets, security experts, and emergency responders. A parent sees an unfamiliar number and immediately imagines smoke, ambulances, police tape, and television cameras. Before answering, they have already buried their child three times in their imagination and resurrected them twice through prayer. Such is the cruelty of uncertainty.
For nearly a decade, every second term seems to arrive carrying the smell of panic. The weather changes, examinations draw closer, pressure builds, and suddenly, school fires return to national conversation as faithfully as Parliament returns to allowances.
