A clanging school gong at 5.00am signals the end of a peaceful night, and if somehow one sleeps through this, the vigilant dormitory matrons ensure that no-one is left in bed. The dormitories accommodate around 30 girls, some of them in bunks, whilst the privileged 6th formers have partitions dividing each bed from the next. After early morning showers (which until recently were cold - a tremendous ordeal in the winter months’ often freezing temperatures), the girls proceed to the dining hall in two shifts for breakfast, which consists of a mealie-meal porridge and bread.
School begins at 7.30am either with an assembly in church, a Eucharist service or, on a Friday, a flag-raising and singing of the National Anthem. Then follow nine school lessons of 40 minutes each throughout the day, with a half-hour break at 10.00am when huge chunks of bread spread with jam are consumed and a lunch of one hour and twenty minutes. The lunch meal consists of sadza - ground, cooked mealie meal which looks like solid semolina and is rolled into balls and eaten with ‘relish’, a type of vegetable sauce often made with spinach, rape or tomatoes.
Classes end at 3.50pm and thereafter, girls must undertake various duties, or ‘manual’, as it is referred to. Activities cover cleaning the classrooms, dormitories, toilets, and clinic, watering the vegetable garden, doing their laundry (by hand), slashing long grass (to keep snakes at bay), feeding the school chickens, collecting fruit from the citrus orchard, grinding salt in the school kitchens and peeling vegetables, to name but a few. Needless to say, most girls really hate these chores, but the prefects supervise diligently!
With acknowledgement to David and Elizabeth Wakefield, this extract from one of their
USPG Project Newsletters, during their time at St James.