1963 FUN AND GAMES AT MAKORONGONI

 

1963, my mother was busy with her work as Mama Maendeleo (Welfare Officer), her office was at the Community Center in Kitanzini better known as Olofea from the word Welfare, she would wake up in the morning and go to her office on her bicycle, me and my sister would go to school, in those days Saturday was  a working day so on those days sometimes  I would accompany her to work place, it was a fun place to be, many children gathered there, there was a teacher who took care of small  children who  wanted to just  sing and play, his name was Mr Mwambola, and for the older children there were so many games there, boxing, darts, card, some older children were practicing their choir music, the community center was a noisy fun and safe place for the children, all paid and run by the Government .

Back at  Barabara Mbili Street, after school hours we were busy, very busy. Let us take a typical Saturday, the day would start with a bowl of maize porridge with a slice of bread and that was the breakfast. Sometimes while drinking the porridge from afar you would hear,

Kikojozi kakojoa
Na nguo kaitia moto
Kidumbwe ndumbwe
Chalia

 This tune meant some kid in the street has a habit of peeing in bed, so his parents have invited his friends to parade him all over the street, with his wet bed sheets or his sleeping mat. This was a signal to rush out and join the fun.  Children would be joining from everywhere and the crowd got bigger and bigger, and we all ended up at the water stream where the last act is throwing this poor kid into the water. And for the next three four days he would be the butt of all bedwetting jokes. I wonder if that stopped them bed wetting, but I guess it did because I don’t remember seeing the same kid being paraded twice.

Where the Iringa main bus stand is now, used to be a graveyard, even by 1964 it was rarely used, for us that became our playground. We played hide and seek, built our secret hide outs, where we roasted birds we had hunted. When we got tired of playing here we would go down the road past the Mhabeshi’s (The Ethiopian) house to the water stream below to swim. Or we would go to Ilala to the main dump and search look for interesting things to play with. Another important dump was the one near the ‘European School’, St George and St Michael. At this dump we would find beautiful things, sometimes even toy cars, but it was very risky they had watchmen all the time to stop ‘African boys’ getting near the school, but it was always worth the risk.

It was the same with the risk we took going to Itamba to steal mangoes. The families of Nyamwezi a who came as soldiers in the German army, later went to settle at Itamba, and planted a lot of mango trees, now their grandchildren who identified themselves as Wahehe owned these trees, and did not like anyone stealing their mangoes. They had many dogs, but that was not enough to stop us going up those trees, a number of us broke our limbs falling from those trees when being chased by angry owners with their dogs.

One place where we were strictly forbidden to go but went anyway was down at the Ruaha River. We were told many scary stories of children who had sank and died and their bodies never found but that did not stop us going to swim and fish in that river. To go to Ruaha we would take the path that went behind the Iringa Prison and in few minutes we were down the river. We knew all the deep places and stayed away from them. At Ruaha apart from swimming, fishing, there were a lot of wild fruits. And we also went back to town carrying sisal leaves to make ropes with.
Some days we would just play near our home, making small drums using tin cans, singing songs by bands, I remember a particular song by Cuban Marimba Band that we used to play that went like this,

Mpenzi wangu siku hizi

Umenadili nia

Mpenzi wangu siku hizi

Umebadili nia  

One day  my friend Lester and I decided we had to have our own  band just like some schools had. So we first had to get a cow skin. We managed to get 5 shillings from his father, I will not say the story how we managed to get the money but we did, I guess you understand. At the end of the Makorongoni street there was a slaughter house and we went there and with our 5 shillings bought a good cow skin. We first had to soak the skin in water to make it soft so that we could make our drums. We went and soaked it at the stream where we also always swam; we want it to soak for two days so as to become soft enough to make drums. On the first day we checked it and it had started softening, on the second day we went to check it so as to start making our drums, the skin was gone. We started doing some detective work and sure enough a few weeks later we found out who took the  cow skin, but ………….
At one end of the street there was this very quiet guy who never talked to anybody, one day he tried to hang himself, luckily?? The rope he used gave away and he survived, after that we were doubly frightened of him, even though he never bothered anybody we were just scared of his silence and the fact that he had tried to hang himself.
To get make a living, this guy started a nursery school under a tree just near the Iringa Prison, he always looked funny him and his class of hardly ten children, sometimes parading and the children singing the songs he had taught them. Now someone tipped us that this was the guy who stole our cow skin, and sure enough a few days later his school had a set of newly made drums. We didn’t even try to ask him, that’s how scared we were of him.

When I think back, sure enough I wanted to form my first band in 1963.

1963 AT CONSOLATA PRIMARY SCHOOL STD THREE

Barabara Mbili Street

 So in November 1962, our family moved to Makorongoni, Barabara mbili Street to live with my grandfather now that father was not around. In January 1963, I was enrolled in Consolata Primary School, a Catholic primary school. Everything was new; I was now living in a new street, enrolled in a new school, in a new class with new friends, and new teachers. In standard three we now had more lessons and more teachers, and we were given bigger exercise books than the ones we used in class 1 and 2.

Consolata Primary School

 

 

I remember the teachers first and foremost Mwalimu Daudi, he was feared by students even from neighboring schools, and he was also  the music teacher who trained the school brass band and sometimes on Sundays he would teach us Catholic songs, I still remember the Latin song he taught us one Sunday, it went on like this;

Atende domine

Et mi serere

Quia pe ca vi mustibi

Aderexume ........

 

Our school brass band was the best in town, even the equipment was second only to the brass band owned by the Ismailia  Jamat Brass band. The school band had 1 big bass drum, which was played by Naftari Kigahe, accompanied by 5 drummers playing drums of two different sizes. There were several tin flute players, they could have been twelve or more I don't clearly recall, there were two students playing the crash cymbals, one just playing a small iron triangle. Leading the band was the drum major who held the mace; ours was an imported mace, not just a stick like other schools. On special public occasions each school would be led by its brass band, the drum major would come up with many funny antics just to better other drum majors. Our drum major would be adorned in colourful pieces of clothes to make him out shine the  others.

Drum major's mace

The second teacher that I remember was Mwalimu Kalinga, a different one from the lady Mwalimu Kalinga who was a teacher at my last school, this one was a male, very smart, most of the time in full suits looking very modern with his gold frame glasses. His favourite punishment was ordering a student to go and try to break the big rock that was near the school using a hammer,  and he had to hear the sound of the hammer knocking the rock while he is busy teaching.

Mwalimu Kalinga's rock

The third teacher whom I remember was Mwalimu Filangali, he became our arithmetic teacher in class 4, I was really scared of him. He would many times wear white short trousers and a white shirt, with long stockings and black shoes. I still remember him always with two or three pens stuck in his stockings, and had a cane in his hand, he was the reason why I first played truant, but that is a story for later. And then there was this lady teacher Mwalimu Consolata, who was also my mother’s friend, every time she beat me she would remind me that she is beating me harder because my mother was her friend!! The headmaster was Mr Mwinuka, we just never crossed paths, he taught the higher classes and we rarely saw him.

After a few weeks in my new school and new street, I started making friends; some of them have remained my friends to date. My best friend was Emmanuel ‘Katuluta’, who went on to become a senior lecturer in a University in Namibia,  he was nicknamed Katuluta because he found it easier to say Katuluta yangu instead of Kaptura yangu, this name stuck with him to his death a few years ago.

Let me mention a few of my school mates, there was Naboth, who went on to become a became a Profesor of medicine, Pius became a politician and died a District Commissioner, Chesus  a civil engineer, Emmanuel Minila, who changed his name later was a senior officer in the Ministry of Trade, and then there was Lester, he was my neighbour at barabara mbili, and boy we did some strange things with Lester just sit tight. His father was a pastor, a very kind old man. Many of my other comrades I remember only by their first names Jelasi, Fredi my scientist partner, we were serious about being able to produce electricity by simply tying old batteries together and soaking them in a cesspit, and there was Macdonald, he was involved in a very funny plot to kill one of the teachers by magic, unfortunate some snitched on him, but we will get to that story later. And then there were the older guys from upper classes, John 'Mzungu' who was rumoured to have a big book with answers to the questions in school that was why he always passed very highly!! And there was Gerald who was Emmanuel Katulutas brother, Raphael who was Chesus's brother a great artist, and there was Abbas Kandoro one of our prefects who went on to be famous as the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, there was a guy called Odongo, Odongo was strong and he would be called to hold us proper when we were to get a beating. 

A few months after starting class three I also started attending my Confirmation lesson at the church just next to school, about three months later I was ready for 'Kipaimara'. My mother bought me new clothes and on the confirmation day we ate rice and meat at home, I can still remember the sweet aroma of the rice of that day.

  

On my Confirmation day

At the end of every year there was an examination, it was serious because the last 5 people in the class had to re-sit the whole year. We called it 'kubunda', it was not a nice thing. On the last day in school, we would all assemble and be made to sit on one side of the parade ground in front of the school. A class teacher would come and call out the names of all her students starting in the order of the best student first, when your name was called you ran to the other side of the ground symbolizing you had gone to the upper class, and this went on until the teacher would say and so those whose names I haven't called have failed and will stay in the same class next year. This went on for all classes, at the end there was this sad and miserable group of students from each class who would have to re-sit sitting on one side of the ground being ridiculed and laughed at and a happy lot  who were going to  upper classes sitting on the other enjoying themselves.  After that there would be a short speech by the headmaster and we would then be told the day the school would reopen and we were dismissed.

And immediately fights started, it seemed we thought the teachers were now powerless so it was time to beat up anyone who annoyed you during the term, or even getting beaten up by some one  you had annoyed,

 

1963  was over.