Moses Isegawa - Abyssinian Chronicles

Just as in the dictatorship I had left behind, at the seminary I found myself in acting school, because survival here depended on how well you adapted to your new role and how wonderfully you performed it. You had to second-guess your superiors, tell them what they wanted to hear, show them the face they wanted to see and feed them the best cues, for they too had a role to play. The sooner you learned the stage value of fine delivery, the longer your life span in the seminary and the more likely you were to make it to the altar and to the time when the faithful would grovel at your feet for blessings, exorcism and deliverance from sin.

The seminary was like any other mildly wild school in the seventies, and certainly not a holy garden full of angelic children who watched butterflies and picked flowers in between lessons. It was true that there were no boys with guns or butcher knives in their school-bags, but the common, less lethal weapons they had, they used very well on us newcomers. For many long nights we hardly got a chance to sleep. Gangs of second-year bullies, still smarting with the previous year’s sufferings, swooped down on us soon after dark, and especially after lights-out, doing considerable damage.

This kind of attack was not unexpected. The bullies exercised their newly acquired powers by inventing nicknames for newcomers, or reusing old ones. They kicked newcomers around, whistled at them and called them “Bushmen.” That was for starters.

On the first night, boys armed with canes, mallets, electric cables and anything else they could find woke us up — we had not been sleeping anyway — and took over from where they had left off during the day. The few who pretended to be fast asleep got drenched with cold water before being pulled out of bed. We were divided into small groups and led to the end of the dormitory, where there was a platform resembling a long podium (the dorm had once been a recreation hall). We were made to kneel on the floor, raise our hands in the air and recite Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd … He prepares a banquet for me …” This was the banquet our masters had prepared for us for over a year. We were made to recite the Our Father, the Hail Mary and a number of other prayers while we knelt, sat, stood, bent, held hands aloft or spun around. Those who were slow to react were either kicked or prodded with sticks. Someone produced a huge aluminum bucket full of cold water and a fat jug. We were told that the baptismal ceremony was about to begin. We stood at one end of the podium and waited as a chair was installed at the other end. A boy in church robes, or what looked like church robes, sat on the chair with a paper miter on his head — he was the High Priest in charge of the ceremony — flanked by the bucket man. A boy in a cassock, holding a piece of paper, appeared and signalled to one of us to crawl to the feet of the High Priest. The cassocked boy shone a flashlight on his paper, read out a name, turned to the Priest and whispered the candidate’s new nickname in his ear. The Priest got the jug from the bucket man and drenched the candidate with cold water as he said the following words: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. From now on you are ‘Hornbill’ ”—or any other selected name—“God bless you my son, and go in peace.” The cassocked boy then told the victim to recite his nickname once, thank the Priest and crawl back to the other end of the podium.

There were four dormitories, officially named after patron saints but popularly called Vatican City, Mecca, Cape of Good Hope and Sing-Sing. I was in Sing-Sing, the most notorious dormitory, abode of truants, rule benders and bullies, the chronic victim of negative publicity, neglect and dirt. The same initiation ceremony went on in all four dorms, with varying intensity. Sing-Sing, with its unique position at the back end of the sleeping quarters, very near the bathrooms and the acacia trees and the seminary fence, topped them all. Every bully there lived dangerously and made every “Bushman” wonder why the priests let all this happen, for surely they knew about this and other initiation ceremonies.

At two o’clock, as sleep gradually took over and the tin roof dripped with dew in tiny, tortuous rivulets, there was commotion once again: we were being woken up. Clad in pajamas, we were made to stand in the corridor between the two columns of beds. After a check to see that we were all present, we were marched off to the bathrooms, ten meters away. The timing was deliberate: the air was ice-cold and windy, and fat clouds loomed in the sky, as though it was going to rain. We stood under the acacia trees, a mat of dead leaves underfoot, our bodies quaking as much as our teeth clattered, and awaited our fate. Dew dripped from the leaves above, driving all semblance of sleep from our eyes and fatigue from our bodies.

Bullies armed with sticks lined up in front of and behind us, and their leader issued our orders: we had to do pushups, situps and then frog-kicks. We were reminded that we were completely in the hands of these boys, and that the more cooperative we were, the better for us it would be. I kept my head down, determined to survey the lay of the land before deciding how best to go about striking back. The weak and the slow, tormented by cramp and semi-paralysis, got kicked and cracked on the head. The drills went on for a long time because we were generally slow, unused to such rigors. The bullies exercised sadistic patience, making sure that everyone got there with time.

Finally, with leaves and dirt on our clothes and in our hair, we were lined up and ordered to open our flies. “Play the fiddle, Bushmen. The fiddle, you nincompoops. As soon as you ejaculate, you retire to bed.” How on earth could one get even a mild erection? The penises looked like shriveled worms, sprouting mushrooms or coiled centipedes.

Two Bushmen left early that morning, one saying that he had come to become a priest, not a criminal, but the priests didn’t seem too impressed. After all, many were called but few were chosen, and he who loved himself more than God was not worthy of the call. Didn’t the chaff, in the end, separate itself from the grain? Didn’t the dead bury themselves? Ships which broke up after the first storm weren’t fit for the voyage, we learned.

On the fourth night, just as the extravaganza hit its peak, someone pulled my left arm, dislocating it. I screamed. The boys panicked and fled. The infirmarian was eventually called, and I got the necessary attention. I was haunted by the fear that this time my hand was going to remain paralyzed and would wilt and become totally useless. I moved my things to the infirmary. I exaggerated my affliction and enjoyed temporary immunity. This was my salvation from the horrors of Sing-Sing. Ensconced in the stark pale blue walls of the infirmary, overlooking the woods, I was safe. Nobody ordered me around. Nobody teased me or forced me to do anything for his pleasure. I slept as much as I wanted. I dodged mass and any other activity I did not like. For the first time since my arrival, I had time to think.

I wasn’t very interested in finding out exactly who had pulled my arm. Given the circumstances, it could have been anybody. After all, boys were doing what the staff let them get away with. What could I do about it? How could I lay my hands on the staff? For the time being, all I had to do was survive and wait for a chance to act.

I was already thinking about getting myself a bodyguard, someone like Dummy A or Cane. I had noticed a shabby, loud bruiser called Lwendo. He went after the newcomers with a vengeance, beating them, calling them names, confiscating their things, forcing them to carry his bathwater to the bathrooms, eating their food and making them wash his clothes on the weekend. My uneducated guess was that he was screaming for attention, somebody to make him feel big. I decided to give it to him in exchange for protection.