My memories of Siyacathula Primary School January month has always been hot and that first day I went to school the sun was unforgiving. Back in those days we had no pre-school. Once you turn seven you go straight to school. We did not have Grade 1 but SSA. We used to be more than 30 in a class. But my first day was a night mare. I missed the name of my class teacher and found myself in a wrong class but my class teacher noticed that one Sbusiso Radebe was missing. I was found. Unlike the kids of today, I did not know how to write my name until the day I went to school. I admire the patience of my class teacher. Trust me it was very difficult to learn A, E, I. O, U. Those were the first vowels I learnt but writing them down was a difficult task. It took me some effort to perfect writing A. We were taught to write it in a small and in a big letter. It was easy for me to write A in a capital letter. The small A was difficult because I had to draw a ring and a stick. My hands were forever shaking. I couldn’t hold the pencil correctly and my teacher had to constantly remind me how to hold it. The standard uniform was black and white for Monday and Tuesday, then khakhi for Wednesday until Friday. There was a shortage of classes in the school. Some pupils had to be accommodated in the community hall and in churches. I was fortunate to attend my SSA in the community hall because it was just few meters from home. I was getting there in less than five minutes. I had no reason to be late for class. Due to shortage of space teachers divided the class into two. The first class was starting at 7:00 am until 10:00am; the second class was starting at 10:00am until 13:00pm. You would find that a teacher will teach SSA in the first session and teach SSB in the second session. We were changing the shifts though. In one week it would be SSB in the first session, SSA in the second session and vice versa. We loved the first session because we enjoyed going home as early as possible. We used to sing “izinkomo zango ten sezigida ngo seven” as we were leaving for home at 10:00am. We had so much respect for our teachers. Before we started a class we would assemble, sing a religious song and pray before we go inside the room. We used to do left - right, left - right as we marched to the room. There was no uniformity when it comes to school bags. It depended on your financial background but it was very common for pupils to carry their books in a plastic bag. The worst days were the rainy days and kids who stay as far as Esbovini would come dripping red mud on their shoes and their bags. The winter in Kwazanele is always bad news. Those days classes had no heaters and the closest you could get to a heater was imbawula. They call it brazier in English. Imbawula is made of a 20 liters metal bucket. You fill the bucket with sand, then you punch holes in it using a pickaxe. Then you empty the sand and you are left with a perfect imbawula. We used to donate coals and wood for the imbawula. The teacher would divide the class into two groups. One group would carry coals, the other group would bring wood. The elder boys in class were tasked to light imbawula. Trust me I never loved school. I hated school with the rest of my heart. Some days I could fake headache or stomach pain just to avoid going to school. It became worse when the elder boys started to demand that we bring them five cents (we called it izuka) or ten cents (we called it isheleni). If you fail to bring that zuka or isheleni you were not going to enjoy the break. Sometimes they would take your crayons. Those guys were a thorn in my flesh. A thought of them was good enough to make me forget about going to school.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:11:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015