adminFadzayi Maposah-Correspondent
The entrance to our Lower Sixth ‘mbombera’ dorm was a wooden double door where Sisi Rose, our Matron, stood each night at 10pm and switched off the dorm lights.
Each night as she switched off the lights there was always at least one girl who would call out ‘aaah’ and Sisi Rose would, in her deep voice, call back — ‘Ndini Rose ndadzima’.
Those three words were always enough to silence any would be interrogators!
Every night someone always walked to their bed in the darkness or finished getting ready for bed in the dark.
I remember many girls who would mimic Sisi Rose’s voice and switch off the lights when they walked back into the dorm after study, the result was always the same, they got punished!
That position where Sisi Rose stood faithfully and consistently each night to switch off the lights in some way demarcated the ‘it’ patterns for the many girls in that ‘economy’ standard dorm.
The double door opened to a very short passage. On either side of the passage were single stand-alone beds and bunk beds.
There were two rows of lockers in the middle of the large dormitory. The colourful lockers, white, blue, pink, yellow, green, faced opposite directions and also served to demarcate the dormitory. The cupboards did not reach the ceiling.
It was possible to chat with someone on the other side of the lockers as one lay on their bed relaxing, waiting for supper or evening study.
The ‘it’ experience seemed to move from one bed to the next.
At times both the top and bottom occupants of the bunk beds would have the ‘it’ experience simultaneously.
It became easier to predict when ‘it’ would knock on one’s door.
Comments such as ‘Oh you are on? So I should go on too maybe the day after tomorrow’ were common back in High School.
‘It’ moved from one bed to the next. Its movement never missed a bed in Dorm Mbombera. At a time before ‘it’ applications to show the exact dates of the next ‘it’ experience the ‘movement’ from one bed to the next was very reliable.
By the time I was in my fifth year of high school I had varied experience regarding ‘it’
I remember some girls struggled during their ‘it’ experience.
The pains that they experienced were terrible and on some days they would actually stay in Dorm Mbombera when others went down stairs to the different classes.
At times their food would be brought upstairs and they would just stare at the food until it became cold and unpalatable.
Usually after a day’s learning girls would flock upstairs and as part of courtesy girls would congregate at the bed of the girl who had missed school because of the ‘it’ pain.
Some girls would bravely sit up in bed and ask how school had been and if there were any notes that needed to be written and how the teachers had been.
Other girls in pain would just want to sleep and at times would pretend to be fast asleep and even snore! Boarding school was something else. Looking back, I wonder how our brains were wired when we were teenagers!
Each time one girl had a nasty experience, there were always someone who had remedies on how the pains could be overcome.
One thing that I remember that was repeated over and over was exercise. Some would even suggest that the girl get out of bed and exercise immediately. In most instances this idea was strongly refuted. A few would attempt some sort of exercise in their nightdresses and then quickly get back into bed.
Then there were those ‘visitors’ who would console the one in pain that all pain would end when she got pregnant! And at that time in our fifth year of high school, being pregnant did not seem as an ideal solution.
The girl in pain would stare wondering why such a suggestion was being shared. Depending on the other visitors at the bed, such talk usually resulted in one being chased away.
Away from the bed visits, another issue that caused much interest was the sports field. Not because we loved sports so much. Actually some who trekked to the ends of the sports field did not have any inkling of love for sports. The long trek to the ends of the sports field came after one girl shared that she had managed to shorten the number of days of her ‘it’ experience.
That statement alone was enough to ignite curiosity and within seconds the speaker had a great audience. And even before she had fully finished explaining how she had shortened the length of her monthly ‘it’ experience, some were already rushing down the two flights of stairs and racing down to the sports field.
At the sports field, the girls frantically looked for heaps of soil that had been left by moles as they burrowed their way underground.
Being big bodied, by the time I got to the end of the athletics sports ground, all the heaps had been kicked away by girls determined to cut the duration of the ‘it’ experience.
And the one who had shared the piece of information followed later and then began to comment that they were doing it all wrong because the heaps had to be in line and not just kick the heaps of soil at random.
All I remember is that the sports field edge never had more soil heaps in place because there were a bunch of girls who were determined to kick away the length of the ‘it’ experience.
Whenever one reported that there was no change in the length of ‘it’, the one who shared always seemed to have an explanation why it had not worked.
Up to today I wonder, did any of those who kicked the piles of soil, shorten their ‘it’ experience?
Online Reporter