4. St Teresa’s

LO SI N G my connection with the African community forced me to focus on school. I enjoyed English, history and maths. I was a bookaholic, reading on average between two and three books a day. Reading was probably the best thing I ever did. I thought highly of my headmaster, Father Patrick Hannan. He had an Irish twinkle in his eyes and a sense of humour. He could be harsh too, almost cruel. Yet, he was a dedicated educator. The secondary school began with four classrooms; by the time he retired the school was several buildings and facilities larger.

A friend and I once wrote a play consisting of one word:

“Rumours”

Did you know that Fr Hannan nearly tripped and fell as he came through the school gates?

What happened?

Thirty impromptu rumours by various classmates later, it ended up with Fr Hannan falling from the equivalent of the Empire State building and miraculously escaping without a scratch. Hannan sat with the teachers in the front row and laughed his head off.

My close pals nicknamed me Skip. The school had shown an American movie starring a boy called Skip. At the end of the movie the name Skip stuck. My best pal Vincent and I got into all sorts of mischief. One year we hooked off from school every Wednesday afternoon to watch

Flash Gordon at the movies. We saw every single episode. We were also regulars at Kontiki, a banned Rock ‘n’ Roll joint. We even got caught once. If there was any mischief about, Vincent, Gaby and I were usually in the middle of it all.

The Catholic church built by Goans in Eastleigh, St Teresa’s. Photo courtesy Nizar Hassanali, ex-St Teresa’s Boys’ Secondary School.

My streetwise savvy came from the many Africans, Somalis, Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Gujaratis and Ismailis I knew, but mostly from the Seychellois and the Mauritians. After leaving school, I spent all of my time with these Francophone friends, even learning to speak pretty good Creole and I developed a fierce reputation for head-butting. Personally I liked the girls; they were a lot more fun. I was a favourite with their mums and dads. I think it was the Creole that charmed them. I started my first band, ‘The Wheelers’, with Steve Rodrigues, Godfrey Agricole, Vernay and Lewis Arissol, David Lobo, Benjamin Lopez, Robert Cecile and Maurice ‘Kanada’ D’Silva. Brian Fernandez, who resembled Elvis and was a great dancer, sang with the band occasionally.

I took to being an MC like a duck to water and later produced two of the biggest variety shows in Nairobi: one at Nairobi City Hall with a cast of more than 100 people; the other at the Railway Goan Institute with just as many participants. My true education came outside of school and from the hundreds of books I read so fervently. My friends called me the Walking Dictionary. In diction I learnt to give due emphasis to the letters R and L, so my accent was slightly different. Many years later, a newspaper colleague reviewing a music show I was presenting on local television called my accent a ‘fraudulent American accent from no American state’.

The radio brought music and lots of stories, but very little politics. The British Forces Radio used a lot of stuff from the BBC; Sports RoundUp at 9:45 pm was a favourite programme. Keith Skues from the British Forces Radio was a great inspiration. School was a breeze. I rarely did any prepping, but I wanted to impress Fr Hannan and I was doing a lousy job of it... that is, until the first term of 1956.

Funds that had been raised from regular evenings of whist and raffles helped expand the building programme. The Whist Drive was a big event that required a large team – some 20-30 school kids – to set it all up and later put away all the chairs and tables. This time Fr Hannan put me in charge of the team. Everything had gone smoothly and, elated, we began the task of dismantling and putting everything away, looking forward to a barbecue around the huge bonfire. We had brought our sleeping bags and would spend the night on the floor of one of the classrooms. As we were packing up, one of my classmates brought a cupful of liquid to my mouth and said with a broad smile, ‘taste this’. It was sweet red wine. I recognised it and asked where he had found it. He showed me a huge, huge, bottle. I snapped at him and said: ‘Don’t touch another drop or I will kill you.’

I did not know that half the class was already pretty merry. As we sat around the bonfire joking and laughing, Fr Hannan and a visiting priest came round to say well done and good night. I swear I must have pissed in my pants from the sheer guilt that was choking me. I prayed and prayed that the priests would not notice that some of the kids were not quite themselves, laughing and stumbling about, some unable to get

up. Fr Hannan did not notice anything unusual and must have thought the kids were frolicking after a successful night. They fell asleep pretty quickly, and pretty quickly woke up with their first hangovers, and were sick for most of the next day. Fortunately it was a Saturday and the beginning of the Easter school holidays.

The great thing about holidays was fishing and books, lots and lots of both. On one of these fishing trips – to a dam in Ruaraka, about 10 km from Eastleigh – I walked across Mathare Valley to Muthaiga and followed the road to Ruaraka. I had caught seven or eight bass and was readying to return home when a White guy – loaded down with two or three fishing baskets, umbrella, fishing net, and chair and dressed in full khaki, including an oval khaki helmet – trudged his way to the bank and began setting up. He looked like a one-man trawling ship with all that equipment. I watched him fish without success for 30 minutes or so, getting more and more impatient by the minute. I used to tie my own flies and I took one and told him in English to try this.

He shooed me away in Swahili. ‘Kwenda, kwenda’ (go away!)

I tried again slowly, almost one syllable at a time: ‘I speak English’, I told him. ‘Try this fly. I have already caught seven or eight.’ I showed him my catch.

‘Oh, wow. OK.’ He tried five or six casts, but caught nothing.

‘Drop the fly into that little waterfall and let the current take the fly into the reeds, and tighten your line slowly,’ I said.

Within a few moments mayhem erupted. His rod doubled up and in frenzy he started screaming ‘Get the net! Get the bloody net!’ like a mad man.

I told him to calm down. He did not need the net. He could easily land the fish on the little sandy beach a few feet away. ‘Let the rod do the work,’ I told him. ‘Work the fish, don’t fight it. You will land it.’

When he landed it he looked inebriated with sheer ecstasy. It was the biggest bass I had ever seen. As he bent to unhook the fish, he asked me to take out what was in his left breast pocket. I did. It was the biggest roll of cash I had ever seen, thousands of shillings, more money than I had ever seen in my whole life. ‘Take it, it’s yours,’ he said, his eyes still glistening.

‘No I don’t want your money, the fly only cost me a few cents,’ I told him.

‘Take whatever you want,’ he insisted. So I took 10 of the 100shilling notes, a fortune. I doubt if my father had earned that kind of money in a month.

‘This is the greatest fish I have ever caught. Thank you. Can I keep the fly, please?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’ Then he gave me his card: J. J. Williams, Chief Accountant, National and Grindlays Bank, Nairobi.

‘If you ever need any help, of any kind, come and see me,’ he told me. With that we both set off for home. I do not recall whose euphoria was the greater but I know my mum was the happiest person on earth that day, after I had reassured her that I had not stolen the cash.

Back to school

I was happy to be back in school after the holidays. I had scored a First Grade in the Kenya Asian Preliminary Examination in January that year and was still privately basking in that glory. Just after 9 am the teacher told me to go to Fr Hannan’s office. I went expecting some sort of congratulations.

Instead: ‘Sit!’ he barked. ‘I trusted you and you robbed me of my altar wine.’

To say that I was shocked is an understatement, but I was not going to take that lying down. ‘Father, to rob you I would have needed to use some force or cause personal discomfort in taking the wine from you. And I did not steal your wine either,’ I told him, still shaking in my boots and my knees knocking. I was not far from pissing in my pants.

The fire in his eyes burned hotter than the Saharan sun and he fired back: ‘Who are you to argue with a man whose knowledge of English is like an ocean compared to yours which is less than a drop? You took the wine.’

‘I did not,’ I stood my ground.

‘You are a liar,’ he shot back.

‘I am not,’ I said somewhat feebly, my strength seeming to drain out of me.

He pointed to the sofa that had been in his office for what seemed like centuries and had been the curse of every boy who had ever been asked to bend over. ‘And drop your pants,’ he commanded.

I told him: ‘I will not. My father never dropped my pants and I am certainly not going to do it for you.’

With that he began chasing me around the sofa, his reddening eyes spotlighting his complete loss of control and his fury. His whip-like bamboo cane did not touch me, but the sofa looked like a heavyweight after going 12 rounds with Muhammad Ali. He was not bad looking but his reddening eyes made him resemble one of those lovesick vampires in a ghoulish cinema plot.

‘Go back to class,’ he ordered after catching his breath.

I went back with my usual cheery smile. Everyone was normal except the teacher, who looked truly perplexed. Soon it was recess and I received another message to see Fr Hannan. I went into his office. Sitting there was my mother, tears running down her cheeks, her skinny fingers clutching at her rosary beads. We lived less than five minutes from the school.

He was waving his bamboo cane again and virtually screamed, ‘Now drop your pants, I have explained to your mother what you have done.’

I shouted back with the tears gushing down and my nose running, ‘No. I am not going to let you hit me for something I am not guilty of.’

‘Yes you are. Yes you are. By god you are!’ he said ferociously.

With that we started another game of round the sofa. Ten or 12 rounds later, my mother intervened. The sofa had lots of stuffing sticking out in various places where the cane had struck.

Fr Hannan flopped into his chair, in rage. My mother’s face was wet with tears, still clutching her rosary beads. Her lips trembled in prayer.

‘What am I going to do with you?’ he asked.

‘You are going to do nothing with me. I quit,’ I said, somewhat calmly.

‘No you don’t. Over my dead body you will,’ he said, somewhat resignedly. There was virtually no conviction in those words. With that he got up and tried to slap me. I put up my fists and looked for an opening for a head butt.

My mother intervened. She told him in Swahili and broken English, ‘You won’t stop him, Father. If he has made up his mind to leave, he will leave. If he says he did not steal your wine, he did not steal your wine. You must believe him.’

A little more calmly, Fr Hannan asked, ‘So you want to leave school? What are you going to do to earn a living? Become a beggar? Continue to live off charity? Beg, borrow and steal? You are 13, what kind of a job could you get? You are not only a robber; you are also a complete idiot. Now go back to class.’

‘No. I am going home and I am never coming back,’ I sobbed. I felt utterly betrayed and let down.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I will make you a deal. If you can get a decent job within seven days you can leave school permanently. If not, come back and all this will be forgotten.’

The next day, just before the start of school, I was at the southern gate, dressed in a brown double-breasted suit, the only one I owned. I felt like the original matchstick man, all bone but very tall for my 13 years. Lighting the single cigarette I had bought from Kajani’s shop with the only matchstick I had, I puffed arrogantly as I headed towards the church, and just as I turned toward the bus stop I caught Fr Hannan’s glance. We both nodded, more out of habit.

That was the last time I went to St Teresa’s, the school or the church. I lost school, and all contact with my school-friends until 50 years later, and I was convinced God had deserted me that day. More than 50 years later one of my school buddies, an altar boy, told me, ‘the wine, it was me.’ And we laughed till our guts hurt.