Could this be the uncomfortable anatomy of the security pat down in Kenya?

                                              Photo: Courtesy

 

Your encounter with Kenyan security guards is incomplete without the inevitable frisking and the inapt touching.

And our security guards — don’t call them watchmen — have perfected the art of touching the untouchable!

The experience begins with a once-over. The security guard gives you a long, searching look, from head to toe, with pauses at the appropriate places.

DOWNHILL

Woe unto you if the security guard is of the opposite gender, because, then, matters quickly go downhill (pun-intended). The long, longing look over, the security guard of opposite gender then smiles and beckons you forward.

You are instructed to spread your arms and legs — and there is apparently no irony on the guard’s face. If you are female, what follows is effectively criminal.

GADGET

If you are male, however, you just might be in luck — you pervert — if the guard is a woman. She will begin with some cruel-looking gadget, that is supposedly a metal-detector, but which beeps loudly when it encounters any large (or is it bulging?) organ.

The expressions on people around you seem to change as the detector moves slowly, from your head — massive beep! — to other places best left unsaid. This is a family newspaper, after all. If the lady guard is not satisfied — that you are clean, or with other possibilities — she, then, proceeds to pat you down. This takes the form of an intimate caress.

She begins with the neck, goes down to the armpits, and rather alarmingly and speedily proceeds to the spread legs.

BAD

All the while, the female security guard is looking you straight in the eye, apparently looking to detect any give-away signs of a potential or actual terrorist, but usually just… Who knows, though?

Physical formalities over, it is then time to hand over your identification documents.

 All in all, not a bad experience, all considered.