Ten Years Later

Dear Clarendon

You might be a little confused by this letter considering I’ve been back to visit you a few times since I matriculated and never felt the need to write to you but rather about you. I’ve been back for the All Girls Festival in 2018, I was invited to be a guest speaker at a prize giving many years ago, I came for a poetry writing workshop a few years ago and I attended the regional gathering of old girls a few months ago. You may also wonder why I have such big feelings when it comes to you. Something happened this weekend and I just want to sit with the warm and fuzzies for a little while and let the moment simmer.

I decided to come with my sister for this reunion. Ten years ago when I came back for my first reunion I felt a strange kind of loneliness I had not anticipated. Since then I have not quite resolved my relationship with you nor East London even as mama is now back in the city albeit living in an old age home. As a result of this discomfort, you Clarendon, seem to be the everlasting permanent address together with my grandmother’s house and a few friends I still visit when I come to East London. 

Class of 2005 (2015)

Most people leave school and either come back for nostalgia’s sake and others may never return again not because they had a bad experience but because that’s just life. And others never return because they hated school because of bad experiences. I occupy a strange position because I think of myself as part of a strange group where for some (many who would never admit publicly) school was a refuge and an oasis despite the many betrayals we faced in the form of racism and sometimes blatant carelessness we encountered as children.

That’s why I blasted you on national tv five years ago and I figured you wouldn’t mind an open letter five years later. It felt crazy to me five years ago that systemically you were participating in a harmful culture and children had to take to social media in order for their voices to be heard. To be fair, you were not alone in what happened then as that moment was not just about you as a school but an education system of a collective of privileged schools which have struggled to reckon with their history. And yet, I still keep coming back to you.

These past few days had me thinking about Sumantra Ghoshal’s idea of “the smell of the place”. I won’t go into his analogy as you can watch the clip but in short he talks about institutions as places that have a ‘smell of the place’. You smelt different this year. You felt different this year. Of course I have also changed and I see you differently. Quite literally you are different because the infrastructure of the place is different with a new swimming pool (pardon me, the Harrison Aquatics Centre) and the new Mary Laurie Memorial Hall, the astroturf, the shelter where the girls wait to be picked up, and computer labs and the classrooms where the prefabs used to be. You have grown and expanded in ways that are quite astounding. You have branded yourself as a centre of academic excellence. And no doubt you are when we look for the markers of quality education in not only South Africa but the world as Manka Situma (aka ‘Loza’ Situma, my girl from the class of 2005), the guest speaker reflected in her speech. 

Athi and I with Ms Mazaleni, the Maths teacher

My sister and I could not help but notice the range in hairstyles the Black girls had. Hairstyles that would never have been possible when we were in school. There were blonde braids! And dreadlocks! I hope you don’t think hair is a fickle marker of identity. It is so much more and policing it is not only weird (I’m being euphemistic) it is to deny creativity. We even saw some girls wearing grey pants! And yet we were still searching for the sameness we left behind so we could see ourselves in you despite the time that has passed. There were so many moments of seeing you anew. 

We decided to go to the music concert on Friday night. We remembered this event from our time in school. We were spellbound! Every musical item was edifying. De Novo Serenata was my highlight. Their long green skirts and black tops seemed so stylish compared to the black and white we had (my sister’s year had a green paisley dress!). Their rendition was a medley of what sounded like an African American spiritual that also included Ntsikana’s ‘Ulo Thixo omkhulu’ and a remake of folk songs in isiXhosa. The harmony was breathtaking. We could not help but fangirl two of the girls during the interval. We told them how elevating their song selection had been. And that each segment of the song felt like time travel. There was also a Grade 11 pupil who sang in soprano as though she could be the next Pretty Yende! We also gushed all over her telling her how amazing she was. Because she is. In one weekend you also gave me a chance to reconnect with my nieces who are now walking the same grounds I used to walk and singing the same hymns I used to sing.

Family portraits

This weekend celebrating 122 years of your existence also left me thinking about the 200 year present: Elise Boulding’s idea of marking the past, present, and the future. Perhaps that’s the point of returning to Founder’s Day; it is one of the few rituals I have in my life to mark long stretches of time. Other than my family’s history, I have very few opportunities to think of myself in relation to a century long story. When we were there as children, you celebrated your centenary of existence. We understood then that it is important for institutions to stay alive but also to reinvent themselves. I remember a joke said behind muffled voices that the founders of the school and the curator of the Founder’s Day service could have never imagined the inclusion of Bawo Wethu Osezulwini (code for diversity). Let alone the choir’s song this year, ‘Hlonolofatsha’ (which was glorious!). I forget which former principal is responsible for the tradition but Ms Winkelmann would share the history of founder’s day when we began preparations and had to learn ‘Dank God, Dank hom alom’ so we could sing it from memory on the day. Imagine our shock when the words appeared on the screen! 

Class of 2005 (2025)

Marking time is an ancient coding humans need. We do it with our names. We do it with marking places. We do it when we get married. We do it when children are born. We do it when we get divorced. We do it when marking death with the stones we chisel with names and dates. And nothing says marking time like the many rituals you have which signal not just a year but the desire to exist into the future. Because that’s what you are fundamentally, a belief in the future through the children who are nurtured while in your care for 12 or so years. Much like governments which ought to have the future in mind (ought being the critical word), you are a mini-world invested in the making of future worlds for as long as humans are still around. Even with the threats and opportunities of AI, I’d like to think you believe you have the ability to exist well into the future. This past, present and future concern you have is so tangible in the expansion I described earlier. The investment in facilities is as much about the current children as it is about their futures. I know first hand the effects of having had an arts and culture curriculum when I was there as a child. It refuses to leave me as an adult! In case you didn’t know, you are the reason I insisted on becoming a teacher before I joined higher education.

English teacher extraordinaire: Carol Felton

I began this letter wanting to simply say thank you for maintaining this ritual of marking time. It seems I can never talk to you or even about you without any disclaimers because I refuse to simplify you and our relationship. You have been the biggest lesson in institutional complexity and institutional love. It’s difficult to admit I love who/what you have become because I feel weird about loving institutions because I don’t trust institutions. But it would be wrong of me not to simply acknowledge this weekend felt good. I even bought you a smallanyana birthday present for the library! I’m sure I’ll see you again before the next ten years pass.

Happy Birthday Clarendon!