I happen to know Christopher and his brother Anthony as we attended the same junior school (Sacred Heart – Esigodeni) and followed through to Embakwe School for my secondary education. As a matter of fact, Anthony and I were in the same class/grade until our move to Embakwe in 1960.
What can I say about my experiences at both these two schools? I wouldn’t change them for anything in the world despite the numerous punishments and sjambokings dished out to me and my mates.
The excerpt taken out of Chris’s book by google was hilarious and brought back many memories, certain verbal expressions used such as – ‘raw’ brings to mind our use of the word. Generally, not only did it mean ‘lack of urban sophistication’, but we – ex Sacred Heart students (Johnny come latelies), regarded the resident Embakwe girls as ‘raw’, because of their linguistic accents tarred with an ndebele or shona nuance, along with certain words like ‘Aa-h char-m’ or ‘she’s gett-ing liv-ely’ and many others – LOL.
Us ‘Bushticks’ (ex Sacred Heart school) weren’t normal law abiding school girls at Embakwe, as Sister Jan always said, “Oh! not you Bushtick girls again”. Poor old Sister Mare, Sister Anne, Sister Barbara and Sister ‘Patch-patch’ as we nick-named her.
Fortunately for the girls, we were never consigned to the cellar as the boys were when we erred, but had to kneel (bare knees) on the sand covered ground for hours after having had a few hard smacks on our bare buttocks with a hair brush handle. Sometimes, we had to sit in a classroom for the duration of a film show and write many hundred lines -’I HAVE TO LEARN TO BE OBEDIENT’ – it was absolute torture being able to hear but not see the film.
The account related by Chris of the theft of two chickens at Skinners’ farm and the chase by Skinner’s workers in the aftermath was hilarious, as we found ourselves in a similar situation when a group of us girls raided the little maize meal/sugar cane plantation across the river – only to find the supposed sugar cane sticks were in fact ‘mbale’(sic), a type of African corn for making beer. I was pursued/chased by the kraal head with the loud ‘hue and cry’ by the women – ‘bamba – bamba’ (catch her-catch her) and his cry ‘nzagubulala-nzagubulala’ (I’m going to kill you -I’m going to kill you).
On the issue of the three schools – Empandeni, Tekwane and Embakwe (way out in the ‘bundu’) being like ‘slums’ compared to (whites only) Plumtree School which was over sixty miles away and in the centre of Plumtree town, I would like to dispute that, because even though Plumtree School had more educational facilities etc, Embakwe could NOT be classified as a ‘slum’ in comparison, I happen to know this, as later in life, my son attended Plumtree School for five years and it wasn’t ‘all that wonderful’. – PAT, United Kingdom
Post published in: Letters to the Editor