Falling sick at school was a big misfortune because if you did, you would be taken to the school clinic which we called the sickbay. The sickbay was not so much a bay as it was a torture chamber manned by Mrs Nkuba, the school matron. A well-trained nurse (her words not ours), Mrs Nkuba had real talent for nudging students into rapid healing. To this end, she had created an effective procedure. The first step towards healing was establishing the actual extent of a student’s sickness. Some attention-seeking girls were known to cry over minor pains such as throbbing headaches. So if you arrived at the sickbay half-conscious, supported by your classmates on either side, Mrs Nkuba would command those students to let you ‘fall down’. Once you were on the ground, the next phase was to admonish you for falling sick. Who did you think you were? Were you so special in comparison to other students that the hot weather made you faint? Next, she would ask you to describe in detail without crying or wincing or whispering, exactly how you were feeling. Mrs Nkuba was clear on the fact that she didn’t have supernatural hearing so no matter the extent of your pain, you had to speak audibly. Those with minor illnesses were given medicine, bed rest, a mug of slimy brown sugarless porridge and sent on their way. But woe unto you if your sickness required getting admitted to the sickbay. As already evident, Mrs Nkuba was anything but a gracious host. The volume of her voice was in an all-time high. Her instructions were to be followed promptly. If your sickness slowed you down, she provided assistance by poking you with her fat middle-aged fingers. Then there was the fact that the sickbay always smelled of a great combination of medicine, wounds and despair. From time to time, this smell forced students to regurgitate their food. This didn’t always go down well with Mrs Nkuba as she considered regurgitation to be an act of pride. Another thing that aided Mrs Nkuba’s efforts to heal students in record time was the location of the sickbay. It was on the far south and down the hill from the school, nowhere close to other buildings. The brochure printed out by the missionaries (the founders of the school)about the sickbay said that the location was meant to provide sick students with the tranquility needed for complete healing. Since Mrs Nkuba’s ‘rapid healing’ plan involved eliminating comfort and peace, the sickbay’s location now only reeked of abandonment. Also, there were no visitors allowed. The only students who were allowed into the sickbay were the ‘savedees.’ This was quite surprising seeing as Mrs Nkuba did not believe in miracles and quite possibly, God. Those ‘savedees’ said God would heal you. But in the event that he didn’t, they wanted you to give your life to Christ to avoid spending your afterlife burning ceaselessly. At the slightest improvement, you requested the matron to release you back to the upper side of the school. There, you willed yourself into staying healthy.
