The intricate preparations for going to boarding school started immediately after Christmas. Nogate, Mamkhulu’s daughter-in-law, who was a dressmaker, sewed many of the items I needed. Mama sent the rest of the stuff from Johannesburg, most of it second-hand. All my belongings were marked with my name and cleaned, ironed and neatly packed in a brand new trunk. For the first time I had my own sheets, towels, facecloth, slippers and nightgown. Even my shoes were brand new. I could not sleep for days, I was so excited.

At last the day dawned when I was to leave for school. The thought that I was going to make the journey by train made me feel dizzy. I had seen pictures of trains, but it was quite a revelation to learn that they need special rails to move.

Sandie and Mpondo carried my trunk the six kilometres to Butterworth train station. Two of the girls from Mamkhulu’s house came with to help me carry the lighter things. The station was full of boys and girls, chatting and greeting each other. To me it seemed as though they all knew each other. There were trunks and baskets of food wherever you looked.

Latiwe had organised Nondlela Bikitsha, a senior student from Healdtown who came from Zazulwana village, to take care of me on my journey. She called out my name, checked my belongings and train tickets, and then told some boys to help me carry my luggage.

We slowly climbed on the train. It was long, with many carriages. Students walked up and down the narrow passage, banging into each other with their big trunks. Each compartment was big enough for six students with their luggage placed on overhead racks. The train was filled with smoke and a nasty smell from the burning coal and the students smoking in the passage. I found a place and stood at the open window to chat to Sandie and Mpondo and the rest of them.

I noticed a couple of young girls glancing at me. “Perhaps they’re new too,” said Nondlela. She was right. Later the same day I got a chance to talk to these girls at the Healdtown Girls’ Hostel. Two of them – Rachel Nomazotsho Nzo and Nomabhaso Dumse – became my close friends for many years. The train stopped at Alice train station. Dozens of students piled out, on their way to Lovedale High and Teacher’s Training School. Others were on their way to Fort Hare University. When we got to Fort Beaufort station, a big bus was already waiting to transport us to Healdtown. About eighty of us climbed on that bus, so many more than the handful I thought we would be. The boys helped the girls with their heavy trunks and baskets. This was the first time that I realised that my knowledge of the world had been limited by my environment.

At Healdtown the hostels were all named after previous principals, who were of English descent. It was therefore not surprising at all, that the educational system and the mode of life were all based on the English model. This is the reason that many Xhosa households, many homes in other parts of the country that have been influenced by missionaries, follow a westernised type of life. There was insistence on western concepts of cooking, house organisation and management.

The weekday boarding-school routine would have seemed quite daunting had life at Mamkhulu’s not prepared me for the discipline of waking up at a fixed time, always getting dressed in the prescribed uniform, doing my chores, being attentive in class and always being well behaved. I quickly fell into step.

Sundays were mostly spent studying, relaxing and looking forward to the special Sunday meal with the bread pudding dessert. In the mornings we went to church. Mr Mokitini, the boarding master, would lead us in prayer and Reverend Arthur Wellington, the school principal at the time, would deliver a sermon. Dr Wellington was a very kind person who saw the humanity in everyone, of all colours.

He treated everyone with respect and dignity. When he died in 1946, he was buried in the local African cemetery, according to his wishes.

Coming from a Christian home, I enjoyed church. Confirmation and taking my first Holy Communion were very significant moments in my life. Faith in God has been a stepping stone in my life and that of my children. It is my firm belief that each one of us needs the presence of the divine. When we are facing challenging times or even when we are happy, it is good to begin and end the day by acknowledging the spirit within us.

Soon after I arrived at Healdtown, people started teasing me about my height and clothes. I was tall for a girl, and my gym dress was easily identifiable as being homemade because the pleats were not as deep as those bought from a uniform outfitter. I wrote to Olga about this teasing, as I wrote to her about everything in my life. She wrote back quickly: “Don’t worry about it. Be proud of your height. Carry yourself like a queen.”

One day I was standing at the tuckshop, hands in my blazer pockets, when a group of girls walked up to me. “Hey, newcomer,” said one. “Why are you wearing an old blazer even though you’re new? Is it second-hand?”

The rest of the girls roared with laughter. I remembered my sister’s words of encouragement and gathered my spirit, stretching my frame taller and leaning towards her so she could see my nose flare. “Yes!” I replied. “It is second-hand. What are you going to do about it?”

This was not the only time I was the subject of ridicule. It might have left me in tears if I didn’t have Olga as the rock in my life. Even though she was so far away, I carried her in my heart and my mind. She taught me to stand up for myself, but also to have empathy and patience for those who bullied me.

At school there was a bench outside the principal’s office where those who were being sent home because they owed school fees sat. It always struck me as odd that it was often the best-dressed girls, the ones who could spend lots of money at the tuckshop, who sat on this bench. I wondered why parents would send loads of pocket money to their children before sending school fees. Parents today are the same, bending over backwards to provide their children with the frills instead of giving them what they really need – reassurance that they are loved.

When my mother occasionally sent me pocket money, I would save it and ask her to add on to the money she had when I took the train to Johannesburg to visit her and Aunt Violet during the winter holidays. My mother worked for one Mrs Robertson and Violet worked for another, right next door. Both the Robertsons were very wealthy. Looking back, I guess the two Robertson families must have been related, because the servants’ quarters where my mother and her sister lived were right next to each other, divided only by a verandah that had been converted into a living room for them both.

It was during one such visit that the Mrs Robertson my mother worked for invited me to sit with her on the main house’s verandah and chat. When I first started visiting my mother, I was reluctant to talk to Mrs Robertson because I was shy about my English, although she was always very pleasant to me. But this was in Standard Nine. I had been at Healdtown for three years and was ready to take a seat.

“Tell me, Connie,” said Mrs Robertson. “What do you want to be when you leave school?”

“A lawyer, Mrs Robertson,” I said. “I just don’t know how to go about it.”

A shadow crossed her face. “Are you sure? University is very expensive, you know.”

I hadn’t realised that it would cost us for me to study law. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

Mrs Robertson sat forward. “What about nursing?” she suggested, her voice gentle. “Nursing is a good job to have. A good job, and an important job. And you won’t have to pay to study, which might help your mother now that your younger brother will also be going to high school next year.”

I thought about Olga, who had completed her teacher’s training and moved to the Transvaal to study nursing. As far as I knew, there were only four other career paths open to me as a young African: teacher, clerk, priest and police officer. The more I thought about it, the more I preferred the idea of caring for the sick to defending those who had broken the law.

By now the Second World War had been over for a year. Sobantu, Sipho and Sandie, who had also joined the army when he turned eighteen, had come home, although Sipho and Sandie were extremely frail. Sandie went to Welkom and Sipho moved to Cape Town, where he had a daughter with his girlfriend, before moving back to Cala, where he died towards the end of 1948.

Perhaps I was inspired by his death to pursue a career in nursing. I received my junior certificate a year later, again with flying colours, and I applied to study at Coronation Hospital the following year. It was 1948, I was nineteen years old and the only thought in my head was, “Johannesburg, here I come”.

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Tell us: What do you think of Olga’s response to Connie when she tells her she is being teased at school?