Experiencing a teacher’s ecstasy

I had just finished Form VI at the then prestigious Mkwawa High School in Iringa, in the southern highlands of Bongoland. This was in the early 70s.

I had been there for six years; that is from Form I, in the late 60s. No wonder I had experienced the drastic transformation of that school from the then very British scholarly establishment, appropriately named St Michaels and Georges, to the now Mkwawa outfit, accordingly named to honour the Hehe chief whose gallant resistance and victories against German rule is legendary.

I had witnessed the drastic transformation of school which then had its own bakery, laundry and three course meals prepared by our ‘Mzungu’ Chef Mrs Gallas, forcing us to complain that we needed at least one ‘ugali’ meal per week, to the unsettling reality of ‘ugali’ and some questionable beans every day.

I had also witnessed the transformation of a school where we had hot water showers, common rooms with coffee/tea and sandwich 24-hour services, machine dish-washers, grass cutting tractors and underground well-lit tunnels for use on rainy days, to a school with dry water taps, overgrown bushes, pot-holed roads and dilapidated furniture and beds. But then this again is a story for another day.

Here I was, a 19 year-old high school graduate waiting to join National Service and hopefully and subsequently university if and when I passed my Form VI leaving examinations which we had just sat. The gap between these two undertakings was about six months.

I therefore returned to my home village, Chalowe, in Njombe, where my father had built an unfinished, though livable house. My father, a primary school teacher, and my mother were by then living and working in another village, Wangama, some 40 or so kilometres away.

Naturally I was, bored with village life, but on the other hand I was recognised as one of the well learned young boys in the area.

A smart Catholic Church father in the nearby village of Igwachanya, presently the headquarters of the newly established Wanging’ombe District in Njombe Region, learnt of my presence in the area. He immediately contacted me and convinced me to join his mission primary school as temporary teacher.

To cut the story short in no time I became a teacher of the Igwachanya Catholic Mission Primary School. I was teaching English and Geography to Class VI and VII pupils.

Initially I was nervous but I soon gained my confidence and that of my pupils. And in due course I identified some brilliant brains among these young Bena boys and girls. Actually some of them went on to join universities and excel in their respective disciplines. Teaching at that school was one of most exhilarating experience in my teenage years. I enjoyed every minute of it.

News of my teaching prowess soon became talk of the area and my uncle, proud of my achievements, lent me his bicycle to commute between my home and the school, a distance of about 3 kilometres. I had never mounted a bicycle before but I literally ‘crash’ learnt to do so. The fading scars – or rather certificates - on my knees and elbows are testimony to this.

Therefore you can imagine the joy I had when one evening, on my recent stop-over in Morogoro town, I met a middle aged man at the counter of the popular Front View joint at Msamvu. After a few lagers we were in talking terms when on introduction he fondly remembered me as being his Class VII English language teacher at Igwachanya.

He was now a lecturer at the Mzumbe University College in Morogoro. It goes without saying that I did not pay for any beer after that, and they were many. This was indeed a teacher’s ecstasy. To date I still wonder why I did not pursue education at university.