The Second World War

The catastrophic Second World War was still in progress.  We knew this because the B.B.C. news at 6 p.m. gave us the news each evening at Beit-el-Ajiab (the House of Wonders in Zanzibar) through large speakers placed on the first floor.    This was the time when Germany was flexing its Gestapo muscles for world domination.  Grundig

and His Master’s Voice were the most desired radios that is, if you could get them. Television was a thing of the future.

It was no secret that the dedicated Sisters of the Precious Blood, who held the fort at St. Joseph’s Convent School in Zanzibar, were of German stock.  Little thought was given by the students that these nuns may have had their dear ones in Germany under constant threat.

Placing Zanzibar on a war footing, trenches were built just outside the School to accommodate students and to protect them in case of a bomb attack. However, it was evident that these obscene trenches were nothing but suicidal holes in the ground and that a direct hit by a bomb would be the extermination of students who were trained to place their hands behind their heads and an eraser between their teeth to prevent biting their tongues in case of an explosion in the vicinity.  Somehow we never came to know where the nuns themselves took shelter.  I now suspect that it was probably in a secret concrete- enforced underground hideout where their security could be assured even if an atom bomb was dropped on the School.

But this was not the reason for some students expressing their frustrations.  It was my belief that some students thought that this was an opportune time to play practical jokes on the nuns.    

Air raid practices were frequent.  This was initiated by Mother Superior who would blow her police whistle at certain times and students were expected to leave everything that they were doing in class, and rush out to the air raid shelters.  One fine day during the term examination the whistle suddenly went, and predictably everybody rushed out to the shelters many with relief written all over their faces.  Shortly thereafter, the students were ordered back to their respective classes by a very irate Mother Superior.  This time she had not blown her whistle.  Apparently, a student had excused himself from his class; went to the boys’ toilet (built for security and sanitary reasons away from the school building) and blew a whistle that he brought from home.  Rumour had it that this particular student was not doing too well in his exam and needed to consult some other student to obtain the right answers. What better place than in the air raid shelter! Mother Superior went berserk that somebody in the student body would usurp her authority by blowing his or her whistle and what ensued was a Gestapo-like investigation to identify the culprit.  Even Catholic students can lie with a straight face.  Mother Superior had to concede that she would never be able to flush out the miscreant.

In fact it got a little worse.  Some students would draw the German Swastika all around the School to prove to Mother Superior that she better not antagonise the students.

I guess that the nuns must have been praying frantically for the war to end and it did.

Germany was defeated, and St. Joseph’s Convent School continued to operate as though nothing ever happened.  By this time, however, the politics of Zanzibar began changing and it would not be long before major changes, brought about by sometimes confused island politics would occur and St. Joseph’s Convent School would cease to exist at least by that name.

The Sisters of the Precious Blood will always be remembered for their serious approach to teaching and calculated interaction with their students.  I guess that the expression “tough love” is what they dispensed in their dealing with their students with excessive emphasis on “tough”.  I am positive that many students who passed through their hands will remember them with respect and genuine gratitude for their dedication to education and their love for engendering discipline which was expressed in their no nonsense relationship with the students in their charge and their sometimes puritanical approach to student morality.