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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village, in the land of milk honey and dust or Guruve, the faintest memory waft is sometimes enough to transport one back through time and space to a long-forgotten moment into childhood. And it is surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
In the first decade of our independence, education was a low-hanging fruit, everyone from those who had been forced to drop off school due to the liberation war, came back to school. The young and the old mixed and mingled in school.

This villager might have last week opened a case that will prove difficult to conclude. This son of a peasant travelled back memory lane to his days at the Methodist Church-run Waddilove High School in Marondera and just scratched on the surface how his generation fared as students then.

It is only now that this villager realises that the seemingly insignificant events and activities that punctuated life at Waddilove still remain etched in his memory.

It is the life that some of the students led at the institution during this villager’s time that are intriguing and therefore, worth remembering and sharing with you.

For starters, there was this small farm to the west of the school where big boys traded school dining utensils for sex with some farm workers. The trade in extreme cases extended to bedding mattresses that were evaluated to be of very high value that whosoever exchanged them for sexual favours would have many sessions without making further payments.

That is about two decades ago. It cannot happen now.

This villager remembers things came to a head one morning after word filtered about the illicit trade and a subsequent police raid had unearthed a well-orchestrated barter trading ring that almost saw some students being sent home.

Fortunately, the women-folk at the farm did not want to sacrifice their “breadwinners” and refused to reveal names and phew, that was a close one.

There was also the school’s farm where boys would go and harvest dry maize cobs for roasting in the bush (kumajeke) at night to pop “maputi”

Some of the moments worth highlighting are those when students would use the school bus, a light blue and very ugly, ramshackle of a vehicle that would take all the time in the world to travel from the school to any point. The students had christened it “Mangurenje” and used to snub it for the school UD Nissan truck, which allowed them to enjoy the breezing winds and experience moments of freedom.

It was on the school truck that gossip on love affairs, one-night stands and divorces went viral.

One thing that this villager and his colleagues so dreaded was waking up to find the shower water semi-frozen in the taps.

Boys left the taps running as early as 5am only to return about two hours later to take a quick shower, that is, if the nerve was still there.

On many occasions, boys bathed faces and lavishly applied lotion before going to school, of course, looking smart. Boys called this practice “kutombora” or “summary bathing.” This was quite popular especially during winter. For your own information Waddilove at times has very cheeky weather.

Sometimes we woke up to a bright day and went for porridge at 6.30am only to return to the dormitories a little later to collect our stationery for lessons only to be confronted by nasty wintry and foggy weather that forced some of the boys to wear track bottom, school trousers, vest, shirt, jersey and blazer – a full wardrobe! Bathing used to be just but an occasional episode in the general drama of trying to keep up appearances.

“See me time” every Sunday was the happy if not happiest hour for the students. Those in love or still courting were allowed to see each other for at least an hour or so. They were allowed to mill along the road from the lower school to the upper or vice versa. Entertainment on Saturdays was either film or disco. There was occasional drama ensemble that included the famous Mhekiya to entertain students.

Discos and films were the most preferred. They provided the opportunity for lovers to see each other once again and even become cosier. They also allowed those courting to take advantage of the semi-darkness to gather a little confidence and approach their targets. Such was life at the Methodist institution that everyone who went through its ranks cannot afford to at least spare a moment to reflect on.