That afternoon, as soon as my last exam paper was done, I dropped by her sister’s place and begged her to allow me take my girlfriend to the disco. The sister — she was crazy — not only said yes but also gave us Sh50 and asked us to have fun but take care. With eight, crisp ten-shilling notes in my pocket, the freedom to roam and a tall, slim, gorgeous beauty on my arm, I was ready to paint the town red.

And paint the town red we did, dancing mpaka che. Somewhere along the night, I gathered enough guts to ask for a kiss — my first — a plea that she allowed, marking the one and only time that I almost fainted. The next morning, I walked her home, where her trusty sister insisted I sleep and rest before leaving. I couldn’t sleep, though, knowing she was just next door and being of an age where every single cell in my body was pounding with hormones of the shindwe fame.

But if we restrained ourselves, it was not for fear of the Lord, or HIV — it was still a rumour then — and other sexually transmitted diseases.

It was just that the only sex education we had then was gathered from biology textbooks and we knew enough to know that if she got pregnant, our respective fathers would kill us.

But hadn’t I sat for my primary school certificate examination with three extremely pregnant classmates? Hadn’t I reported to Form One with a guy who had scattered three stray oats in primary school? Amusingly, even then, parents buried their heads in the sand about teenage sex.

Now, if the shrill Kenya Association of Parents had any sense, they would stop pontificating about morals and feigning shock about alarming levels of teenage sex and instead hand out spirited sex education and condoms.

Either that or the kids will get pregnant and catch weird diseases. It’s as simple as that.