Boarding school and its idols

Cetshwayo Mabhena

I remember the boarding school as a place that beautifully combined the vibes of the mental asylum, prison, hospital and above all a sanctuary of intense learning. Cyrene Mission in particular became a place for us to participate in drama, spectacle and excess. Every other thing we did, good or bad, had to be done in excess.

As boarders in the early nineties we did not live but existed as characters who daily performed their lives in a place where being moderate was criminalised. Everyone had to be, what we called then, “umkhando” or simply “umkhakha” which meant a different kind of an individual, dramatic and dangerously unpredictable.

I cannot look back to the boarding school and remember the personalities that peopled it without getting a feeling that partly boarding school was a place where families, that could afford it, sent their most troublesome children to get fixed and to fix others there. It was fashionable to live disastrously and cast away all cares in celebration of life, and one good thing among the many pleasant things about Cyrene Mission, you had to be good in class in order for your performances to be respected. Poor academic performance carried a stinking stigma.

One had to earn a reputation for “sucking data” as we called the art of study, in order to be recognised in the game of boarding life. In the enveloping loneliness of the boarding school, the cold floors and ghostly walls of the mission setting, we had to manufacture our own entertainment by turning ourselves into our own idols and legends. If you could not laugh at others you laughed at yourself. The mission school with its funeral like air, and the hymns had to be disrupted with occasional explosions of loud reggae music, at the time there was also Pansula and De-gong music genres that were the relish of lonely boarders. I write this article today in remembrance of and dedication to two Cyrene Mission boarding school idols that recently departed; Dumisani “Sobohla” Sibanda and Fidelis Thulani Mathuthu. At Cyrene Dumisani was nicknamed Thabolo after a famous Mathematics teacher.

It is my fair suspicion that “Sobohla” is a name he earned after growing a generous size of a tummy as an exemplary worker in the Zimbabwean media landscape. Fidelis Mathuthu became to us “Umgwanga” for his gigantic stature that he took maximum advantage of in the dog eat dog climate of the boarding school, muscle and the ability to use it could be a scarce natural resource. The boarding school could be rough and cold, the winters at Cyrene Mission were criminally cold. The biting cold forced us to invent one thing, the “passport size bath” where one would just wash his face and forget about the rest of the body, for weeks, until one was called a skunk because of the loud smell that one would emit, torturing classmates and teachers. And they were many skunks.

Before I pay homage to the departed idols, and yes, celebrate their rich lives, it is important for me to share with you, the reader, some pieces of the cruel fun about Cyrene Mission as our beloved asylum. The loneliness of the place was made more cruel by the bright lights of Bulawayo, 32 kilometres away that would shine so hard at night. Many of us were caught in all sorts of compromising positions during the weekends trying to steal our way to the warmth of town. Loneliness, I observed at Cyrene mission, can also turn respectable young people into scandalous liars. Some of the biggest lies I have heard in my life I heard at Cyrene Mission. People could lie!

I remember one incorrigible liar who shall remain nameless because he is now an important member of society and his children might be reading. This fellow lied until he became a lie himself and it is still my fear that he honestly believed his lies.

When he claimed that Dan Tshanda, a famous South African musician then, was his brother we believed him. We believed him again when he used to regularly receive pulsating love letters from a famous Bulawayo model. And oh boy did we respect the foxy fellow! We would crowd around him as he read some of the no- Under-18 messages from the leggy lady.

We adamantly refused to believe him when he tried to convince us that Shabba Ranks was a cousin of his. That is when his mask fell, and we discovered that he wrote the love letters to himself and that the pulsating poetry of love was shoplifted directly from the Song of Solomon in the Bible.

Lies became an art, a certain genre of surviving the mission school. Cyrene Mission being a boys only boarding school, at a time when cellphones and the social media were still to be invented, having a girl that wrote one love letters was a divine experience. The lucky boys would read out their letters loud for the envy and entertainment of many lonely souls. Up to today, I am still nursing some bleeding wounds of the heart from a serious accident that happened in the love sphere of life during my Cyrene Mission days.

Our hunting ground was St James and Usher, both girls only boarding schools; it was a case of lonely hearts seeking other lonely hearts. I think I grew up believing that beautiful girls only came from Usher and St James, and that might be the reason I later married some big eyed damsel from Usher, my current prison wardress. I met this tall and scandalously beautiful lass at the Bulawayo City Hall, chilling her young life away during the holidays. She was doing Form Two at St James and I was in Form three at Cyrene, perfect match.

She was beautiful beyond repair, think of Beyonce Knowles, Minnie Dlamini and Khanyisile Mbau combined and collapsed together in one young body, and she was friendly too, smiling to show deadly dimples and milky white teeth that gave me the unholiest ideas of my life.

Back at school I penned her four full pages of love poetry. Her reply was short, “Zindaba, you are a nice guy, let me think about it.” There was a big promise in her thinking about it, but the evil Madonna had done the cruelest thing I have known, sent my long love letter to her brother who was, unknown to me, my senior at Cyrene Mission. The muscular fellow did not confront me in anger, he called me aside and pleaded with me to stop it, and he kept my letter, circulated it widely, and made me a famous love poet of the mission school.

I am so bitter because I believe some good for nothing much Cyrenians out there have wives because of lyrics stolen from my long letter. Such bombs as “if beauty was electricity, you were going to be a power station” and that “for you I will dig Mount Kilimanjaro with a needle and empty the Indian ocean with a spoon” were in that passionate missive which ended with a sad “I will sell my mother and all my sisters to buy you!!” We later became good friends during my days as a university student. If she was not by now an important wife of an important man with many children, I swear I would name and shame her for the crime against my humanity!

On the departed idols

These two brothers became important members of the Cyrene Mission family. Fidelis Mathuthu was a dark six foot rugby type, a true gentle giant. His stature alone was a threat and he used it to protect the young from bullies. To my memory Mathuthu never really manhandled anyone; he just used to describe how he would lift the unfortunate bully up, WWF style, and then drop them down before stepping on the head. His name was a talisman to drop in any encounter with a bully at Cyrene Mission.

Fearers and admirers called him Zeus, a famous wrestler at the time. In the mass choir where I was also a member, Fidelis never really sang, he made buzzing big noises. I think the whole choir thing Mgwanga was your way of getting on the many trips that the choir made out of the boredom of Cyrene. Rest In peace, the fighter who never fought and the musician who did not sing! Besides being a nerd and a book worm which gave one pride of place at Cyrene, Dumisani Sibanda was a kind of comedian. Fortunately, most of the jokes were at his own expense, this brother would mock himself to bits and put himself together again.

Like Mathuthu, Dumisani was someone to run to if bullies arrived; he was not a fighter but a wordy talker whose wise counsel was valued. I was not surprised when he became a leading journo, Mdawini had a lot of words and he used them. As an A-level student, living at the exalted Foster Village, Dumisani Sibanda carried himself with the dignity of a teacher and he earned fitting respect for it. Rest in peace Bhudasi! There were benefits to be harvested by the protectors of the young and defenders of the vulnerable like Sibanda and Mathuthu.

Seeking permanent protection, some young ones would link up the brother with their sisters at St James, Usher or back in town, turning the good brothers into proper ladies men.

The world is poorer today with these idols gone.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena is a Zimbabwean academic based in South Africa. [email protected]