Wild Dominion wrote:
Serious question: do Kenyan girls get their hair cut off at age 17 or so? Or is it just girl runners?
Not at age 17 or so, but most school going children in certain parts of the country don't plait their hairs or anything. This is more common In Rifta Valley, Western, Nyanza regions. The reasons are two fold:
If they are in boarding schools (which most good public schools are,) it may take a lot of time from their schedule to be worrying about hair and all that.
The other but less talked about reason, is that in public schools (High schools,) we have both the rich and the poor. If Girls are allowed to plait their hairs and whatnot, they tend to be very competitive. The rich might end competing on such things and the poor will be very easy to point out. It is for this reason that schools generally try to avoid things that will differentiate students based on wealth, beauty and whatnot.