‘Hail Mary full of grace, our Lord is with you. Blessed are you amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, holy Mary – mother of God, pray for us sinners now until the hour of our death. Amen.’
It did not take me too long to memorize the above prayer because it was at the heart of our daily devotion in St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School. I’d just joined in 2000 from Burma Camp Basic School. Felt like leaving the barracks for church – in my case ‘Vatican Annex.’
Aquinas was my second choice – don’t bother about the other two, the reality is; all three were Christian schools. By implication, the makaranta (Islamic school) attending son of Hajia Fati was surely going to wind up with pastors – in Aquinas, they were priests – did I hear you say Roman Fathers?
On the occasion of 50th-anniversary celebrations in 2002. We were there some - Science 3 class a.k.a Agric
On my first day I saw a white-robed man on the compound, I muttered to myself ‘wow, so there are Imams in this school,’ it did not take me too long to know the particular man was Father Batsa – the then headmaster, a boss player in every respect.
Mass was a big deal for two reasons – everyone had to attend irrespective of name, age, sex, status, religious persuasion etc. the other reason was even more thrilling, it was more often than not a ‘no – school’ day right after mass.
To wrap up on my first day before entering ‘mass’ let me recap how all first years’ had to wear nominal identification tags – crudely referred to as ‘dog chains.’
You wear it on entry into the compound and it’s the last thing you remove outside the gate. The cardboard tags bore your name and course of study – crazy tradition that I think must NEVER be allowed to go!
Back to mass, the major components of which were singing hymnals thanks to Torgbor’s projector and ‘professional’ conducting, there was the singing, sitting, standing and kneeling stages. There was the praise and dance bit, collection and taking of ‘bread and wine.’
Except for the ‘bread and wine,’ I had zero qualms fully participating in the other processes. At least not till a teacher at makaranta said I should refrain. Simple reason, my presence was enough and no one chastises you for not being ‘active.’
Then on, I substituted ‘Hail Mary’ with Faatiha – the opening chapter of the Quran or prayer unto the prophet. I still paid collection sung hymns, clapped and kneeled. Some of us had joined Aquinas knowing well that we had to respect the ‘minimum’ rules.
For a school that many would have thought was going to impose Roman Catholic teachings, guess what, mass was the only BIG difference. In the first year we had a course – Religious Knowledge (RK) and it was the essence of its name.
It was via notes by our tutor Brother Pius Dogodzi (bless him) that I first got to know about the Islamic Schools of Thought – Maliki, Hanafi, Hanbali and Shafi’i. Again it was from him that I learnt about some major Islamic sects. Now, that’s what’s up!
As Muslims, we had a prayer place – close to the biggest gutter, nestled in a bush, few meters from the incinerator and the urinal block. It was not cemented and we failed to secure permission to make it more comfortable despite Metro TV’s preparedness to help out.
It’d have been tough navigating if we had been a few Muslims but the community known as the Aquinas Muslim Students Association (AMSA) was a fairly big one of which I served as secretary in my final year – one of my proudest achievements within the walls of that school.
Aquinas gave me an education – but that one seff my parents paid so no hustle. But it also left me with a sense of respect. Despite our motto – Veritas Liberat (The Truth Shall Set You Free), most boys were professional lairs especially in the letters they wrote to girls.
And mind you, we lost a sizeable amount of contact hours because of noise from aeroplanes that flew past a number of times daily. But with all that loss, we have ALWAYS risen to the academic pedestal and hosited with pride our accomplishments.
We are going back to Cantonments, where lives were moulded. Where we fine-tuned our gentleman-ness, where we cooked trouble and served the headache on teachers and of course where we have our names written boldly as former students – OLD TOMS!
Next blog: "God is NOT an old tom, Cantonments was not heaven." still writing it .....
Disclaimer: Searched but didn't find the unedited photo, me - am the faceless man standing
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