The Bells of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Zanzibar

St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Zanzibar had two very tall and imposing steeples that over looked the entire town.  From whatever part of Zanzibar town you were, provided of course, that you had a view of the horizon, the imposing steeples of St. Joseph’s Cathedral could be seen in all their glory.

If you did not see them where you lived, you would hear the gigantic bells housed in the steeples, at least twice a day.  The bells usually rang early in the morning to announce the beginning of Holy Mass.  At six in the evening the bells rang yet another time to remind the faithful that it was time to recite the Angelus. It was also a clue for youngsters that they better make a hasty retreat home.

From time to time, the bells for the “dead” (a sound with a very low assonance) were rung at appropriate intervals, to announce to the whole town that someone, somewhere on the island had passed on.  When these bells sounded, residents were at their windows talking to their next door neighbours speculating on who might have passed.  In most cases, the speculation was correct, but there were times when they killed the wrong individual.  Such was the nature of gossip in a small town.  But this was generally harmless gossip.

As young boys, never a day passed without trying to learn something new, through our experiences. The Church steeples were clearly to be seen from our 2^nd floor home.   My brothers and I would spend many hours staring at the steeples and you could see in our eyes that the next exploration had to be those steeples. We did not have to talk about our plans but we were sure that some day our dream of getting up to those steeples would be realized.  I guess it was the same kind of feeling that mountaineers get when they want to climb Mount Everest.

Our first introduction to the steeples is when we were asked to accompany one of the priests to assist him in ringing the bells for an evening service.  This chore was normally done by the Mission Boys who, for reasons unknown to us, were not around to do this service on that particular evening.  Long ropes hung down from the bells through holes in the platform above obscuring the view of the bells. We were then instructed to pull these ropes to enable the bells to sound off.  The interesting thing about this process is that when the bell was pulled, it carried the bell operator some five or six feet up in the air for the first sound of the bell.  As he came down, the bell rang again and then up the bell the operator went again to keep the bell ringing continuously.  It just seemed a whole lot of fun.  However, the bells were deafening and after we had climbed down, we could still feel the bells resonating in our ears.  Our thoughts immediately went to the Hunchback of Notre Dame comics.  For the first time we did not feel sorry for him since we felt that he must have had a good time ringing the bells.  We certainly did!

One warm afternoon, however, my brothers and I were in the Church grounds trying to do something constructive by doing nothing, when my brother Maurice came up with the suggestion that it was time to realize our dreams.  Most people that afternoon were having a deep siesta because of the heat, so there was no one around to obstruct our plans.  Wolfango, who lived directly opposite the church and who had a comprehensive view of the boy’s side of the Church grounds, was promptly persuaded to join us. If he thought that we were insane, he did not say so.  We let him in our plans and so we started climbing up the steep steps leading to the bells in the Church steeple.  There were approximately fifty steel steps to the bells, and the stairway was almost perpendicular.  Fortunately, when we got to the bells (one of them being the bell for the dead and by far the largest that I have ever seen), we could relax for a bit since there was a platform immediately under the bells.

We were all in awe over the size of the bells.  They were massive.  The gong of the bell for the dead looked a little bigger than a soccer ball and was made of solid steel.  After we had got our breath back, my brother Maurice asked a very simple question:

“Hey Wolf, I wonder if we took that gong and just touched the side of the bell, what do you think might happen?”

Wolf took the bait,

“The only way to find out is to do it,” he insisted.

Wolf was a very short individual.  He carried the gong on his shoulder with the view of doing exactly what Maurice had suggested.  What he did not know is that by the time he limped across to touch the gong to the bell, it suddenly slip from his shoulder and hit the bell on the other side.  Suddenly there was a massive sound that came from the bell that made us reel with anxious delight.  There was no doubt in our infantile minds that the priests and the townsfolk would have heard it.  We immediately scrambled down the steps and made our way out of the Church into the Church compound. 

Wolfango’s father was wakened from his siesta and as soon as he saw us he demanded:

“Who rang that bell?”

There was absolute silence.  Then addressing his son Wolfango he yelled:

“What were you thinking?  Did you think it was your Father’s wedding?”

We were all smiling on the inside and jubilant that Wolf took the rap for our misdeed.

The Church bells are very much alive to this day.  Our incursions into the privacy of these bells and the sight of their magnificence will always remain in our memories.  Like reaching the peak of Mr. Everest, we ventured where very few ever did.