I remember the music my father used to play. Later when I was 15-years-old I came to know that it was the music of Rod Stewart, Jimmy Cliff and Steve Kekana Juluka. I vividly remember the day my mother dressed me up and took me to my father’s art studio. I knew it as Harare Art Centre. She carried towels as we walked, so that we could cover ourselves as we passed drums emitting choking smoke that were placed all over the road. I couldn’t understand why people were running up and down and the chaos that surrounded us at the time. But when I grew up I came to understand that that was the liberation war unfolding in the place where I was born – Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

Later, we moved out of Mbare, a township where my parents had grown up, to a dormitory town in Chitungwiza. Our new home was a three bedroomed government issued house. It smelled of cement and my mother used to complain that the concrete floor used a lot of wax polish. It was there that I attended my first school, Dudzai Primary School. Grade one was not as easy as I had thought it would be. I didn’t attend pre-school, which is why my report at the end of each term would say that I was rated number 38 out of 45. That was not good. To take my mind off my poor progress, on weekends I would watch my father paint on canvas because I was fascinated by the smell of oil.

We moved again, to another part of Chitungwiza where I had to attend a different school again. At Zengza Primary School I made friends easily, which wasn’t the case at my previous school. I did poorly in my academics there as well. One day my mom gave me 15 cents to pay my school fees for the year; it was called the General Purpose Fund. I secured the money in my shirt pocket before I left for school, but when I arrived at the bursar’s office it was closed.

I went to class with the money still in my pocket. At break time, while playing at the nearby pond, two of the coins fell out of my pocket. I tried to no avail to get the coins out. I knew, that if I went back home to say I lost the money I was going to get a hiding. After school I went back home and made up a story as to why I did not have a receipt for the payment, which my mom believed.

The next day, I realised that I couldn’t go to school as I hadn’t paid the money I was supposed to. I then came up with another plan; I would pretend that I was going to school, but actually hide somewhere in the bushes. I had identified a kopje which had bushes, which I thought would be a perfect place for me to hide. It was close to school and I’d be able to see the other kids coming from school and join them to go back home. However, when I got there, I became scared. I decided to just walk around the neighbourhood until school finished. It wasn’t long until someone who knew my mom noticed me wandering around during school hours. They told my mom and I got that hiding I’d been avoiding. My mother then escorted me back to school the next day.

I don’t have many good memories of my time at Zengza Primary. Most of the teachers seemed to have been ex combatants of the recently ended civil war. Their way of discipline made it seem like Zengeza was a military school and there were limited human rights. I remember Grant Flower, the father to the great cricketing Flower brothers, had just introduced us to cricket; a gentleman’s game.

He had been looking for boys who were interested in playing. I was one of the first to show interest. Then other boys and I met with Mr Flower on the school’s soccer field where a crease was curved out in the middle of the dusty field. He taught us how to bowl, bat and field. He went on to separate the better bowlers and batsmen from the group. I was the shortest in my class, even amongst the girls, but I made the team. Mr Flower said that I was a good fielder and patiently taught me how to improve. I was so excited because back then that was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.

The next day at school my teacher marked our books. She had the habit of telling the learner whose book she was busy marking to stand up while she commented on their work. All the learners in my class feared her because there wasn’t a day whereby school ended without anyone receiving corporal punishment from her. When it was my turn I stood up, and once again, my academic progress was dismal. I waited for her to comment on my work.

She told me that I now fell under group six; we were grouped according to our academic performance group one being the best and six was the worst. She also told me that my work was going to be reviewed on a weekly basis, which was no surprise to me because I was a permanent resident of group six. The members of group six regularly received corporal punishment and it would be dealt out with a wooden ruler on their hand. I’d received the wooden hiding on my hands too many times that I had become immune to it.

As she continued marking my book, teacher asked me if I were one of the boys who had been attending the coaching clinic and I said yes. She told me that from that day onwards, I was banned from ever attending the coaching clinics again. I was devastated. That was the only thing I enjoyed about being at school. I couldn’t even think about going behind her back; the consequences would be me being beaten black and blue with a wooden stick. This was the same teacher who had forced everyone at school to call me Nicholas, “Because there was no such name as Nicky,” even though Nicky was the name on my birth certificate.

Everyone now still knows me as Nicholas.

One day, my father visited my school to view my books and see where I fell short. I had no idea how he managed to point out to my teacher that my name was Nicky and not Nicholas. The following Monday she told me how she didn’t particularly appreciate the way my dad had made the point of my name being Nicky and not Nicholas. She continued to tell me that if my father intended to treat her like a “table spoon”, that she was going to treat me like a “teaspoon”.

From then onwards she treated me so badly. I couldn’t even complain to my parents about it because I feared that it would only make things at school worse for me. I told myself then that I just had to bare it until the end of that year. Things would be better with my next teacher in the coming year. Unfortunately for me, she had passed on the message to my next teacher in the next grade. I was no longer allowed to write in normal government issued exercise books, as the new teacher said that my handwriting was bad and that I had to use the brown covered books to write in.

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Tell us what you think: Did you teachers like this? Do you think things will change for Nicky the following year?