Joys of Life in Boarding School

Feels almost like yesterday though it was many years ago, too many to mention. My first day in boarding school as I joined First Form in high school… I was so thrilled and every aspect was exciting to me, including sleeping in the dormitories with all the other girls. So excited was I that when my aunt who taught in the school invited me to spend that first night in her house in the staff quarters, I declined the offer. Later as the novelty wore off I was to beat myself and wish I had accepted that invite.

Within a month homesickness had set in with a vengeance. I missed the familiarity of home, missed my siblings, missed the fact that in my days at primary school I went home every evening. But now I was miles away from home and the end of a school day meant only more school with excited girls everywhere in the dorms, Preps in the evening, and the bookworms who read long after lights-off inside their blankets with the use of a flashlight (no one was allowed to read after lights out, naturally).

I remember writing home with all my complaints about boarding school, among them that the food wasn’t enough and that I wanted to be taken to the boarding school 3 miles from home so I could be visiting home each weekend. Of course the food was enough but our school was not on a mission to fatten us, and, being in a good Provincial school, my parents were not going to indulge my whims and take me to what was commonly known as a Harambee school. (A Harambee school was one where students who had not passed very well were admitted, while in a government school students who had passed well in their exams got the first chance of direct admission). A Provincial school was second only to a National one, both in academics and standards.

Eventually we all adjusted, and soon I was a natural in the independence of boarding school, and being in this environment where a thousand girls spent the most part of the year was beginning to be real fun. You have to understand most of us were only 13 plus or minus one when we joined form one so homesickness was normal in the first term. But soon we all learned to love our new home.

Barring the fact that this was a girls’ school and the only male figures were members of staff, it was a great school. Education was the priority here and shenanigans had little place. Discipline was nearly never an issue, and I’m sure our teachers had a fun time educating us and engaging us in lively, intelligent discussions in class. In an environment of mutual respect and purpose like this, relationships between students and staff were quite cordial. I don’t remember there ever being an issue that necessitated riots or the kind of horrific experiences going on in some schools today, where students have taken to burning down the schools their parents have paid so much to build, and even burning their fellow students to death in the process. Whatever one says, I don’t understand such animal behaviour; it can never be justified and must NOT happen. Someone needs to do something because students are supposed to be busy learning and developing into productive citizens, not plotting the destruction of lives and property. This is archaic to an astonishing degree.

Of course, like in any large group, there were a few rotten eggs who gave teachers a headache. Not in class though; there you would never suspect any monkey business. Nay: This was the group that sneaked out of school over the weekend and went to the nearby Muranga town for Disco (that’s what it was called then) and whatever else they did at that hour. Catching them was always a feat, they had so perfected their art, but eventually one or two would get caught and get an instant suspension, which became an expulsion for repeat offenders.

And then there was that curious practice where the school nurse would examine all the girls whenever we came back to school from holidays, checking for any bulging stomachs. Either out of sheer luck or some kind of tip-off, occasionally she discovered one, and that really would be the end of school for the student. At least this school. See, my school had no policy to host expectant students, and if one was found to be so they would have to leave and, either come back after delivery or hopefully join another school. (I’m not sure anyone did come back in the four years I was there, but I did hear rumours that some of the girls who joined our school from other schools were themselves already mothers who had been sent away from their first school for the same reasons.) Well, such is the case with girls, you can expect at least five will go this way in the course of four years.

The closest we ever came to any kind of protest was when the Education Ministry suddenly announced that school would close after Easter holidays. We were incensed! This had hitherto not happened. We were so used to spending Easter holidays at home and now that was being taken away from us! The news came towards evening, during Prep time. And the whole school exploded. We shouted, we complained; we left our classrooms and sat or stood outside, talking animatedly and expressing our anger and frustration at the injustice of it all. Soon the teacher on duty came around to see what was happening, and being the good girls we otherwise were we scrambled for our classrooms – but it was already too late. He wanted the prefects to write down the names of all who had been outside or had been making noise. Well, several of us owned up, and we couldn’t have anticipated just how seriously the teacher on duty took this noisy display. He made us kneel on gravel outside the staff room for the whole period of Preps. (Mark you those who never owned up got away scot-free. So much for do gooders!) The teacher could not believe the group now kneeling before him. He called out our names one by one, pausing for effect, determined to shame us out of ever considering such behaviour again. By the time he let us go, we could barely stand. We had been kneeling for over an hour, and little pieces of ballast were etched deep into our knees. We moaned our way out of there and decided any kind of protest was just not worth it around here.

School trips made for the most exciting part of boarding school. A chance to see the outside world, a chance for adventure, a chance to ride in the school bus with our teachers. In a girls’ school we particularly loved our male teachers. What, you are shocked now? It was sheer nature, sheer biology. They reminded us of our brothers, our fathers, and of course our friends who we only saw during the holidays. In a sea of females, any male sight was deeply refreshing. Not for any weird reason, just that it brought normalcy to a rather abnormal existence. At home I had brothers with whom I’d lived all my life, now suddenly girls everywhere. Girls in class, girls in the field, girls in the dorm, girls in chapel. One more girly face and I wanted to scream. This was where the male teachers and other staff came in. They broke the monotony, and reminded us the world was still as it should be.

And so during school trips the males were our heroes. We sang all the way to and fro, we danced so much the teachers feared we might topple the bus. We cheered our male driver on. And he loved it and lapped up every minute. Of course he had to be careful not to lose his job, but he indulged us just a little and kept us happy with a permanent smile and speeds we could live with. The male teachers with us in the bus became our friends during school trips. We sang together, played harmless games, and on the whole had a swell time. Going back to school was a downer knowing the following day all this would be a dream and we would be back to the seriousness of studies.

Our teachers were of impeccable character, and I don’t remember any incident of student abuse. I do know though that at least one of them married a former student as soon as she was done with school – oh well, I’m not here to judge.

Lights-off was a curious idea in my school. At precisely 11pm the night watchman would turn off the lights after giving us a five-minute warning. The ritual was the same night after night. At the first lights out, a barrage of shouts would ring across the dorms scattered over more than an acre of land. The girls would shout his nickname as they begged him rather noisily to leave the lights on a little longer. Which he took light-heartedly enough and indulged us a bit longer, but eventually he too had to think of his job and turn off those lights. The relationships between the students and non-teaching staff was simply cordial, which went a long way into making everyone’s life more fulfilling in this little community. We did have one or two who rubbed us the wrong way though, especially the matron (a woman, of course, probably her only crime.)

My second boarding school where I did my ‘A’ level was girls’ only too, but it was a National school which made it even better than the first. Curiously I don’t ever remember us being subjected to that examination we suffered under the nurse in my ‘O’ Level school. Maybe because the school was in Nairobi and most students were from Nairobi so it would be easier to summon the parents should cases of a bulging tummy arise… Neither did we have lights-out in my second school. We were considered responsible enough to turn off the lights and sleep at the proper time. And it worked just fine for everyone.

Here too discipline was never an issue, and the only form of protest I remember was when the Seniors (‘A’ Level students) decided we were not getting enough privileges and would do a silent protest to drive home the point. So it was decided (by the ring leaders, who curiously included the head girl) that on the material day we should wear the junior school uniform, that is, light blue shirts instead of our white ones. And so it was that during assembly that day, the school looked very dark and gloomy. I hadn’t realised till then how much difference the white shirts made in the school. See, with navy blue skirts and sweaters, you needed something bright to take away the darkness.

To everyone's amazement, the head teacher said absolutely nothing of our protest during assembly, though later on the teacher on duty went around our classes writing down the names of the five or six students who had defied their peers and dressed in white. I envied them their courage! Well, unless they received some silent reward or had something written in their school leaving certificates, this incident was never mentioned or revisited again, and we were all back to our normal lives again the following day. I don’t remember if our grievances were looked into.

My most memorable school trip happened here in my second school. Our Geography teacher decided to take us to Kariandusi to see where diatomite was mined from. We were over the moon! The trip was as exciting as any, but being ‘A’ Levels we were more controlled and there wasn’t as much singing in the bus.

At Kariandusi we met our tour guide whose sole job today was to take us through the tunnels of the mines. One of our teachers flatly refused to go into those tunnels, and I wished I had the same choice. Well, part of me wanted the adventure, while the other part dreaded the idea of being in a narrow, dark tunnel I never been into before, totally reliant on the guiding skills of the guy with the lamp. And so in we went, filing after the guide, our hearts filled with unspoken apprehension.

We hadn’t gone far into the tunnel before we came face to face with every teenage girl’s horror - hundreds and hundreds of bats fluttered before our faces and we began to scream while we covered our faces with our sweaters. The guide had a hard time calming us down but eventually he succeeded as he told us, amusement written all over his face, that we should not scream or we might bring the very light diatomite walls crumbling down on us in the tunnel. Ouch! Whose bright idea was it to take a bunch of teenage girls inside a dark, bat infested, diatomite lined tunnel? We went deathly quiet, with only a few whimpers as we dodged the bats. By now we had established they weren’t the blood-sucking vampires from movies. Still, the sooner we got out of there the better, we didn’t want to stay here long enough to find out.

All in all, the tunnels were a delightful adventure. Besides the thrill of the bats and the scare of collapse, real or imagined, the walls were pure white, and it really looked like an underground palace one would otherwise enjoy in a wider space. Eventually we made it through to the other side of the tunnel and emerged back to light, to the surface, to solid ground and bat free existence. And we all breathed a sigh of relief, at the same time breaking into excited conversation about our short-lived adventure in the tunnel. By and large, we were all glad we went in.

My Nairobi school was not as closed as the Muranga one. Here one could obtain permission to go home over the weekends if need be. Visiting days and outings were more, and we had one or two tricks up our sleeves for that extra break from school. You see, nearby was a Catholic church where practising Catholics in school would often go for confession. No one was denied permission for this purpose. So we quickly aligned ourselves with our Catholic friends and would obtain permission to go confess. (I never said we were saints. God has a lot of work to do on some of us still…) Suffice it to say most of those who went out for ‘confession’ never saw the inside of a confessionally. All we wanted was a walk and an afternoon out, and to walk the Adams Arcade malls where we bought little fairy cakes and other goodies, then walked back to school happy with ourselves and ready to face another week.

Looking back, I’m glad my high school days were spent not only in boarding school, but also in girls only boarding schools. It means discipline issues were rare, and we never had to act up for any boy, which left us free to concentrate on our studies. Also the chance to spend so much time with one’s peers, I think in a big way it really matured us. I see little virtue in taking little children of primary school age to boarding school, but I think high school boarding is an experience not to be missed. Still, in this environment where some students have taken to burning down their schools, I can understand if parents would rather not take their children to any boarding school.