A Jamaican. A black man. A foreign country.

Those were the variables a Jamaican educator in a French-speaking country considered when female students started to make his life scary.

The man was working as an English language assistant and found himself in a pickle when two underaged female students showed up at his home. After that, another lifted her skirt to show him her underwear in class.

“I was working closely with the kids and so on… helping them to improve their English. I lived in a small town so people would see you every day; going to the supermarket, going out, people see you as you walk by and, because it’s a small town, everybody knows that there’s a Jamaican living there,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He said two students kept inquiring about where exactly he lived.

“These girls were between the ages of 12 and 15. They kept on asking where I lived, and something in my head told me that they were too eager and I did not want any kids coming to my house; I am a grown man so I just did not want that kind of situation. But they kept insisting, and I kept on ignoring because it just did not sit right with me,” he said.

But one day he was at home when he heard a knocking on the gate outside. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

“I was about to go outside and a spirit told me to look through the window. There were the two little girls showing up at my house. I said to myself, ‘I never went to prison in Jamaica and I don’t want it to happen in another country.’ I went back in my bed and they knocked and knocked, and I suppose they got frustrated and left,” he shared with the Sunday Observer after reading last week’s account of a male teacher here who was being sexually pursued by an underaged female student. The man had reported the incident to the administration of the private institution.

Meanwhile, this educator said when he returned to school he noticed a change in the behaviour of the girls.

“They felt slighted, so their whole demeanour towards me changed. It was like: ‘We came to your house and you didn’t come out, and we knew you were there.’ They were no longer these friendly little kids anymore. It was a ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ behaviour,” he told the Sunday Observer.

And because they were no longer a bother, he chose not to report the incident. But though those girls paid him dust for the remainder of their studies, there was a subsequent situation with an older, though still underaged, student.

He noted that at the higher grade level, classes were divided in two so that there could be more one-on-one contact with students.

“I always encouraged the students to ask me for the translation of words that are used in everyday conversations so the language doesn’t seem like something that is academic, but more conversational. One day, one girl came up to me and asked me how to describe when two pieces of clothing have the same fabric.

“I remember just saying it matches or it is a set. She went back to her seat and the next thing I know, she came back to tell me that her panty and bra is a set. I just ignored her totally. The bell rang, and she came back again and pulled away the top of her blouse to show me the top of her bra,” he told the Sunday Observer.

The man, annoyed, said he looked past her and dismissed all the students. And while she and the other students were leaving the class, she told him, “My panty is a string.”

This he deciphered to mean she was wearing a thong.

“I ignored her totally again and she flashed me. She lifted up her skirt and showed me her panty,” he told the Sunday Observer.

At this point, out of fear, he saw the need to ensure that someone else at the school knew what was happening.

“I had a friend in the guidance counselling unit of the school and I decided to tell her. In case any of the students cooked up any story at least somebody would be able to corroborate my story. I told her who it was, and, of course, the girl denied it,” he recalled.

“I said, ‘No problem.’ “

I just wanted someone to know what happened in case anything developed. It is not formal, but at least somebody else is aware of it. At least I have somebody that can back me up to say, ‘On such day he told me that she did this.’ “

His major fear, he said, was the narrative being misconstrued.

“I was in a foreign country, I am a Jamaican, and I am black. All of those things stacking up, it would be my word against any student’s. There is always that fear. It’s like when a woman accuses a man of rape; he raped her until he can prove that he didn’t. The concern was real that this child could do damage,” he said.

Happily for him, that situation dissipated towards the end of the school year, “and so that was about the last week I was there so nothing went any further”.

“I think male teachers, or just teachers in general, need to have a solid head on their bodies because when these kids are force ripe they will just go hard for what they want. You just have to have a really strong head on your body. Those children will send you to prison,” he warned.