On a bus to Yaounde, a six-year-old girl asked. “Uncle, what `is a Latrine?” I whispered to the little girl: “a Latrine is a Pit Toilet”. His elder sister and brother are students of the prestigious colleges in Bamenda, Sacred Heart College and Our Lady of Lourdes College. They are using pit toilets, just like their grand parents who school in the same colleges decades ago. Both schools now have a new proprietor.
Three weekends ago, this freelancer was contemplating the dehumanizing nocturnal trip between Bamenda and Yaoundé, with one of the regular transportation agencies. Seated next to a disgruntled couple, it was clear from their discussion that what started off as a liturgy of complaints against the Parent Teacher Association Annual Meeting that they were returning from was actually going to be a conducive eavesdropping bonanza and a contemplative distraction throughout the tortuous journey. This couple was sitting to my left and had their almost five to six year old son sandwiched between them.
The wife who came across as a vibrant well spoken, mid forties professional, could not help muttering aloud over and over “How can my ten year daughter, in Form One, be forced to use LATRINES?” Her husband, who appeared very uncomfortable in the routine of public transportation, seemed to have been forced to this means of transportation because of circumstances beyond his control – a socio-economic and political chaos that was evident to anyone who cared to listen, to see or even perceive. He retorted nonchalantly: “Justin, her elder brother, is using Latrines in Sacred Heart College – there is not much we can do!!” This seemed to frustrate her even more as she protested even louder: “How can this be when we pay more than a million francs annually for both of their tuitions?”
Yours sincerely was charged with bringing a friend’s daughter for a scheduled interview at one of the Embassies in Yaoundé. She is six years old. Sitting by the window to my right, she leaned over to me, sitting in the Aisle Seat and asked “Uncle, what `is a Latrine?” The lady overheard and I could feel her embarrassment transform her frustration into a deep sense of shame and desperate helplessness. I whispered to the little girl: “a Latrine is a Pit Toilet”. I would have gone ahead to explain that it was an “outhouse” or an “unsanitary dump” that summons one to leave the comfort of the main house to walk unsafely to some other structure that houses the ‘pit’ or the ‘dump’. But professional instincts kicked in and I pulled out my note pad.
Is it really true that almost six decades, after their founding, both Sacred Heart College and Our Lady of Lourdes College still use Latrines, pit toilets or outhouses? The answer sadly and regrettably is YES! This is truly sad because both colleges are private, first class and representative of upward mobility within the nascent Anglophone middle class.
It is an economic truism that we get what we pay for. It is obvious that both Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Lourdes are first rate colleges within the context of a struggling southern Cameroonian economy. The fees to these institutions should be representative of the services that are provided to the students.
It is almost universally acknowledged in Southern Cameroons that Sacred Heart College is an indispensable vegetation of what used to be a luxuriant educational nursery. To Southern Cameroonians, Educationists and Catholics especially, whatever is true of Sacred Heart is also true of Our Lady of Lourdes Secondary School – which is now called Our Lady of Lourdes College.
The one was founded on January 21, 1961 at its present site in Nchuabuh Mankon, as an all boy’s boarding school. Sacred Heart College was founded even before Southern Cameroons started its downward spiral towards self deceit and self destruction. Today Sacred Heart College is 59 years old. The other was founded on October 15, 1963, at its present site, behind the St. Joseph Metropolitan Cathedral in Mankon Bamenda, as an all girl’s boarding school. Our Lady of Lourdes is almost 57 years old. Both institutions operate first and second cycles – High Schools. Graduates from both Schools are expected to meet any academic challenge in any university in the World and any other professional challenge that is commensurate to that level of academic achievement. And my God they do!!
Both schools are both administratively and financially operated by missionary ordained Priests and ‘Sisters’ of the Roman Catholic denomination. Their catholic propensities and idiosyncrasies are obvious for all to see – their mannerisms, their speech, their ‘affection’ for the ‘children’ and their blending of spirituality and academics is obligatory. These administrators are under the umbrella of a Chief Executive Officer called the Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Bamenda. The Archbishop is the Proprietor of both Schools. He is answerable to the Pope in Rome.
Like any other business endeavour, it is obvious that the success or lack thereof of the institution falls squarely on the shoulders of the administrative and ownership structure. Any business evaluates itself on the basis of customer satisfaction in order to be sustainable. One of the indicia of this evaluation and analysis is the quality of life of the student body as measured in their academic performance but above all in the day to day health and wellbeing of the students, who after all are the target product of the business. The day to day health that culminates in the long term health and life style of the students is not only a mark of success but an indispensable milestone in the achievement of the ultimate business goal – education with a spiritual flare that is for a life time.
Against the background of this premise, it follows logically that the administrative and proprietary hierarchy of both Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Lourdes has failed woefully in as much of the quality of daily life of its student population is concerned. This can be quantified and qualified in terms of health, safety, convenience and long term memories, within the context of Latrine use.
There is an obvious socio-economic reason why indoor flushing toilets replaced latrines and outhouses. It is not farfetched to relate the advent of western education to the infrastructural, sanitary, safety and convenience accessories that came with the same education. It has been six decades since both of these colleges were founded. What in the world is so infrastructurally impossible or financially prohibitive to ask that the third generation of the premier batches of the alumni of these glorified institutions be provided with a basic and indispensable activity of daily life – the ability to safely, healthily and conveniently ‘take a dump’. Taking a dump is as primal as it is inescapable. It is like breathing. It is like drinking. It is like eating. In fact all these are not disjunctive. They are conjunctive on that smooth course of a student’s daily routine. If after six decades, the administrative, operational and proprietary hierarchy of these catholic institutions cannot change, fix, reform, upgrade or conventionalize the toileting of their business institutions, what makes any evaluator or prospective customer think that they are actually serious of the golden product that is being promised – a balanced, healthy, safe, spiritual and sustainable education?
In fact, what is good for the goose must be good for the gander. What is good for the parent must be good for the child. I will bet my life that there is no parent who will send their child to these institutions who will be using ‘flushing toilets’ and expect their child to use a latrine. It follows that if the administrative and proprietary hierarchy is not using latrines why should the students, who are younger, more vulnerable and fragile be required to use latrines? After all, do the Priests, Sisters and Archbishop not claim to be the parents of these students – albeit ‘surrogate’ parents. Even as surrogates don’t they owe a fiduciary and spiritual duty to the students and their parents? Bluntly put, does the Principal of Sacred Heart College use a latrine? Does the Principal of Our Lady of Lourdes College use a latrine? In fact, does the Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Bamenda, use a latrine? Why should their spiritual children be condemned to using latrines, especially against the backdrop of their numbers, their propensity for infections of these stagnant, contained and forever growing stew of bacteria? The question to ask is who has ever attempted to quantified and qualify the number of man hours used up by sick students who get infected from the outdated, outmoded and unnecessary use of latrines? Does this affect the bottom line of the Metropolitan Archdiocese?
It is not farfetched to say that the present cream of the Southern Cameroons middle class are alumni from both schools. It is just as true that the students being raised in these institutions (and I dare say other catholic institutions) are an indispensable tonic to the tomorrow of Southern Cameroons and beyond. This too is the future of the Church. We need them strong and healthy. Above all we need to have pleasant memories of their ‘college’ lives. We never want, even one of them to remind the Catholic hierarchy, parents or the rest of us of a horrible memory that had anything or everything to do with a ‘simple dump’.
Ancestral Mbonwei
Eavesdropping to Yaoundé.