by Colin Hyde

Minister of Education Francis Fonseca, in response to a push from UEF leader Ms. Yaya Marin Coleman for the establishment of a hair policy for schools, told XTV News that he didn’t see the need for one. He said individual schools have their rules and policies, and parents who have concerns should acquaint themselves with the guidelines of the school to which they send their children. Since “forever”, the minister has been saying that hair shouldn’t get in the way of the education of our children and youth. In the interview he said that whenever issues came up about hair, his ministry sent out memos to the schools, whatever that means.

I’ve said before, a deh wid the minister on this one—wait, where I think he is on this one. You know these lawyers are a very slippery set. Fonseca, a lawyer, has been different from his breed. He has been praised for being upright, not shifty, for being no “Mr. Triki”, no “Mr. Master of Games.” You can tell a lot about a man by the way he wears his hair. One glance at Fonseca, and you see boy scouts. You know the look of boy students at the—call me biased—the greatest primary school anywhere, everywhere, ever. Of course I’m talking about Holy Redeemer. Lodge brothers have their many secretive signs to tell them apart. Holy Redeemer and those who want to be like Holy Redeemer have the clean boy scouts look.  

Ah, a man can walk the straight and narrow all his life, but if he lives long enough, something or someone will come along to trip him up. On this hair policy thing, Fonseca is, what they say, slipperier than an eel. Da man can’t be pinned down! Bully for him; he’s got his gallery. I’m in it, front row.   

Now, I don’t like to be the one to tell you this, but the male who is wired to continue the species has to be very careful around young female flesh. We know the law. It doesn’t follow what is natural, it is against animal biology, but in the world that man has created, not all things can be allowed to go along with the natural flow. We get that, and in that vein we cheer schools that ask girls to not doll up. Aha, God said don’t eat the fruit from that tree, and all was cool until the fellow got tempted. The biology of the lily is stress enough; why would you gild it in a place of learning? Weep for the boys who are already doing poorly with the grades.

This is a hot subject, so we’ll take a little pause here, before we get heati again. Not once did I see my mom in curlers, not once. In her day, many females did curlers, most only inside their home. My mom and the other women in my world considered a female on the streets in curlers to be improper. My dad wasn’t enthusiastic about curlers either, but me, I liked them. I think part of the pull for me was that curlers meant the hair was recently washed with shampoo, and sweet-smelling shampoo bowls me over.

During this breather, I’d like to tell you about food. I can sit down, tongue hanging out in front of a plate of hot-off- the-grill, burnt to perfection meat, or tender fish out of the oven, and somewhere within earshot some dirty bohga goes haaaaaak, and out goes my appetite. I have to let it pass, have to put a considerable interval between that filthy savage and my food. Foul brute, swalla, please noh twing!

You know, sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone. Some want a hair policy; well, I know I’m not alone when I say without question there should be one for perfume.

People, ehm, men too, should want to smell between okay and nice when they’re out in public. Our private spaces are ours alone. In my day, when I worked in the bush I was cool with the pikayri smell infused with stale corn tortilla. All farms have a stream running by, or a water hole, and everyone owns a bar of soap. When I entered public spaces, I may not have smelled like an office guy, but I kud a mi pass.

My godmother, Lorraine Castillo, I haven’t seen her since she left Belize for England when I was a primary school boy, but she noh forget me. I get little gifts now and then, and I prize them like a man getting a favorable reply after sending his 7th letter. A treasure one time in the “perfume” line was a little can of Addiction, with the scent of wild ginger. When it was down to its last whiff, like a decade ago, I put it away in a drawer where I keep things that are dear to me. Sometimes I remove the cap and sniff the spray nozzle. My, that Addiction is powerful! The nice scent’s still there. The last “perfume” I got from Mother England is called Magma, and that smells so nice that if I dyed my hair and spritzed my body with it I could fool myself and enter the mix.

These scents can do things. You don’t have to be an entomologist to know that pheromones rule the insect world, drive them critters crazy. Everyone knows the power of scents, even Donald Trump. He has a perfume and cologne collection that makes people want to fight.

There’s a reason why some perfumes are very pricey, and it’s not just for the bottle design and name brand. Like the dirge and the march, the scents control the mood. If a girl wants to draw a guy like a moth to a flame—Jim Reeves sang about that—she won’t win from the Trump line. That’s not for that. Whoa there, can you imagine the scene at school if a girl who was born to subdue guys gets ahold of one of those bottles with the allure? She’ll own all the boys in school; she’ll have them following her around like those poor little ones followed the Pied Piper, to their end.

I shouldn’t have to tell you that schools should have a perfume policy. Anyone who says, what does “scent got to do with it”, tell them to come for a little spritz of skunk, or pikayri. Trust me, nobody will notice the hairdo. Perfumes should be vetted by male teachers, and they should produce a list that’s allowable. There are refreshing scents for general use. Boy, some of those perfumes are rated.

To heck with the mom, let the young man speak

Congratulations to Judge P. Wilson of Bridgeport for his very sensible decision to order punishment other than jail for a 33-year-old female teacher who robbed the cradle, the “victim” in this case a 17-year-old male student. The story, by Sam Kirk in WBOY Clarksburg, said the woman got 1-5 years of home confinement, a $1,000 fine, 20 hours of community service per week while she is under sentence, and she must “register as a sex offender for life.” Kirk said there is also 10 years of supervised probation for her after she is free. Watch out there, that woman is dangerous.

Of course there’s wrong in a female teacher letting go with a male student. But I consider the punishment on the harsh side, though a whole, whole lot better than jail. Ha, ha, Kirk said “pre-sentence investigation found that Rankin [that’s the woman’s last name] is not likely to reoffend, and is not a danger to society, and brought her situation of being a victim of domestic violence and having diagnosed PTSD into account.” Ha, ha, the story said the mother of the boy “gave a tearful prepared statement”, asking for the maximum sentence and saying in part, “To you, Courtney [that’s the first name of the teacher], how dare you!?” Macron’s wife must cringe whenever she hears of mothers breaking down in cases like these.

This is one time I will disrespect a mother, over her own pikni tu. Kirk would have done well to just flat out ignore her. The comment we want to hear is from the victim, how he feels about the woman losing her job and being branded a sex fiend for life. I’m not done with the mother. I want to hear what she will say when in a few months the boy turns 18 and the old philistines put a gun in his hands and send him abroad to shoot people, or get himself shot. That’s what she should be railing about.