memoirs from a time past

Part 1
The house we lived in last is the one that I remember vividly, but we will come to the house later. Just next to it stood a big chicken run built into a small house complete with an asbestos roof. A fence surrounded it and it had a nice cement “yard” because you see, years back there used to stand a little two-roomed “flat”(In Zimbabwe it is common for any small dwelling house with an asbestos roof to be called a “flat”) which was used as teacher’s accommodation but it had been demolished. I remember I used to hate sweeping out the chicken droppings but the again I had big brothers who did all the literally “dirty” work for me. Behind the chicken run was a garage where my dad used to park, firstly his lovely sky blue Renault 12, then later the truck that I never quite warmed up to. Right next to the garage was a cage with four compartments which was hoisted up on long poles and I could swear by the time we moved away I still could not be at eye level with the lowest compartment. We used to keep rabbits in there.

In front of the house was a little patch where my mother grew roundnuts. Oh how we used to harvest in that patch, it was tiny but it must have had good soil because it sure produced a lot of roundnuts. As we progressed further there were two other patches which other teachers used to grow their crop. What divided the patches was a path that always used to fascinate me. It was man-made but it comprised of two neat strips divided by grass. In the green months the grass between the two strips would grow so tall that my modest grade 4 height could be hidden completely. Therein my friends and I would set-up booby traps by tying together two strong grass stalks and then wait to see people trip over and fall.

Where the patches ended the school yard began. There was a big Msasa tree which had old logs neatly arranged underneath it to form benches. This place we used to call “kumatanda”(loosely translated- at the logs) and a lot of outdoor school activities would take place under the shade of that tree. The wood of the logs over time had grown very smooth and lovely from all the little bottoms that had fidgeted on them. Right next to the tree was a picturesque Roman Catholic Church. Wow that church was beautiful, it was built of large blocks of stones and it must have been hundreds of years old. My favorite part was the side of the church where the bell was, maybe because we were never allowed to play there. In front of the church was a big yard full of sand where people used to congregate after church and discuss the mass or simply just gossip. Come to think of it I am glad I was too young to have been wearing heels because I can’t imagine how the pretty young ladies with their stretched hair and glass shoes (In the early 90s patent leather shoes were all the rage and they were called “glass shoes” because of their shiny glassy look) used to walk in all that sand.

Immediately after the church was the Grade 1 Block where yours truly spent her first year of formal learning. It comprised of two classrooms side by side and well lets just say all that I remember of it was that it was a classroom block. Behind it was an area where many hours were spent playing. Underneath a Syringa tree (What do you know my research actually shows that that is the correct name for it!) was a concrete block at least one metre high, one metre wide and 8 or 9 metres long. Now believe I have no idea up to this day what those missionaries were thinking when they built that thing because it did not look like anything meant for kids to play at. My mother would always scream is she heard that I had been playing there. The last straw was when one of the teachers’ kids fell and broke his arm; I was forever banished from that “thing”. We used to call it “kuchiblock”, well it did look like just a block.

There is not much to say about the rest of the classrooms but I will give a special mention the grotto and my father’s office. The grotto (I will confess before I started writing this article I didn’t think this was a real word until I looked it up) had the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of it. It was man-made and comprised of long thickly knit trees whose density was never penetrated by the sun. We were utterly and totally forbidden to play in there, but we did not need much persuasion, the place just looked spooky on its own. Now the only problem is it housed the prickly yet surprisingly much sought after delicacy in the form of madhorofiya (Prickly-pear cactus fruit). Now I will not even be ashamed to admit that in all my childhood years I never had the guts to pick that prickly fruit and rub off the thorns myself. The few times that I tasted it (it was not even particularly nice, full of seed inside) was because someone else had rubbed off the prickly bit for me.

My father’s office was the prime building at the school. It was nestled between (and attached to) two classroom blocks. Its roof was higher than all the other buildings at the school thus meaning that you could see it from a distance. Have I not told you? My father was the headmaster! I recall on one wall of the office was a line-up of the legendary great African statesmen. I remember seeing Kenneth Kaunda, Eduardo Dos Antos, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela ( when he spotted his pre-detention side parting that never ceased to amuse me) I recall I always used to go stand by that wall and look at the stately poses and wonder if my father would one day end up on that wall. Wishful thinking perhaps but a young girl always sees her father as the ultimate hero.

I did say I would come back to the house, but not today. That’s about it about the place where I spend most of my childhood years. But that’s only about the school and its buildings, what went on in there and the friendships I made, is a story for another day. For today I shall rest my carpal afflicted hands.