How our school chaplain got it all wrong

When my batch entered Sacred Heart College Mankon-Bamenda in Form One,

the College Principal was the Rev. Brother John Phillips from Scotland

and the College Chaplain was the Rev. Father MacMahon from Ireland.

While Bro. John Phillips stayed as principal until we graduated from

Form Five, Father MacMahon left us somewhere along the line. I think

it was said that he continued his priesthood in Kenya. He was replaced

by the Rev. Father Terry Guilfedder, from Scotland like the principal.

Before Father MacMahon left, he had created a very strong impression on me. He was by built tall and stout to begin with and was a man who stood for excellence. He was always very neat and each time he entered a classroom to teach, he would remove a handkerchief from his pocket, and without saying a word, he would hold it by the tip of one of its four corners and raise it above his head.

We students understood that this was a signal for one of us to step forward, take it from him and wipe the teacher`s chair and table before he could place his bag and books on the table and start teaching.

Once during that our year in Form One, the Form Fours acted a play to the school in the auditorium in which Peter Nche played the role of Father MacMahon in his role as a classroom teacher.

Peter wore a priest`s white cassock which I suspect he actually borrowed from Father MacMahon. In the play, Peter entered the classroom in MacMahon fashion, carrying the priest`s kind of handbag under his armpit and as soon as he got to the table, he fetched the famous white handkerchief from his pocket and raised it by the tip, just like the chaplain always did.

A load roar of laughter rang out in the hall from both students and staff, including Father MacMahon himself. It seems to me that everyone, including him, immediately realized that it was him Peter was impersonating.

Father Terry Guiffedder was of a very different sort. He was more of a students` friend than his predecessor. And he understood us very well. While Father MacMahon taught us English Language in Form One – and I think Form Two – Father Guilfedder taught us French in Form Four and English Language in Forms Four and Five. He really made us enjoy the English language because he made its pedagogy look like fun.

When he asked a question and a student gave an answer that was not correct, he would simply wave at the student and say “Oh, go home!” Some of our Balinyongha classmates such as Ngwa Emmanuel Tahmundungnji and Tandiba Michael Fomutu translated those words into Mungaka (the Balinyongha language) and it sounded something like “Ghe ku njuh!” They were so fond of waving interlocutors during our informal chats outside of the classroom – just like Father Guilfedder - that some of us who were not from Bali also started using the Mungaka expression to each other in that manner.

On another occasion, Fr. Guilfedder was teaching us the descriptive essay in Form Four and asked us to imagine that we were somewhere in Mankon town: “What do you see in the town?” I raised my hand and when he said “yes!” to me I said “Please Father, I can see smartly-dressed prostitutes roaming the streets and looking for men”. There was a loud outburst from my classmates.

In total disbelief at what he had heard, the man of God blocked his ears with his hands, made repeated steps towards me and retreated and said: “Oh! Really? You mean, of all the beautiful things you could see in the streets of Mankon Town, only prostitutes came to your mind?” From that day, my classmates added another nickname to the others they had given me. They called me the “smartly dressed prostitute”.

Before that, they had been calling me “French” because they appreciated my performance in the subject. But it could not have been intelligence on my part because my story with mathematics was the exact opposite. Despite my indecency, the priest never insulted me nor punished me.

Not surprisingly after he taught us English Language, because of his very good teaching methods, the school scored over 50 per cent in the subject at the GCE for the first time in many years – perhaps even since the founding of the school.

On the other hand, Father MacMahon was quick to insult us and threaten us. He used to call us “little cheeky puppies”. When he had a revision class with us just before we wrote our exams, he would sit at the table threateningly, thumb his fingers on the table and triumphantly announce: “Is there anything anyone wants to ask? Now is the time! Tomorrow there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!? So, he had already prejudged us!

Father MacMahon lived in the first concrete house you get to on your right from Mankon town as you approach the Sacred Heart College campus. At the time behind it was a football field that had been constructed just for Form One students. The Vice Principal, the Rev. Brother Norbert who was also the Sports master organized a sports competition among Form One students which he code-named “Atoms”.

So usually, when we played on that pitch, Father MacMahon heard us from his house. He could even watch us play from one of his windows or standing in the back yard. Once when he was chastising us in class for over indulging in the use of Pidgin instead of speaking “good English”, he claimed that he was saying so because when he heard us playing from his house, we used to tell each other concerning the football: “Kickam! Kickam hard”.

And that is exactly where I disagree with him because who among us spoke that kind of Pidgin English? We were more likely to say “Kickam strong” and not “kickam hard” as he claimed. Perhaps he picked that up while in Nigeria where he once served before coming to our school. Even so, is that the kind of English spoken in Nigeria?