Post date: Aug 10, 2014 4:45:52 AM
8 July 1964
What I need is a good vacation. I am getting lazier and lazier all the time. Our vacation was shattered by a riot the students held over our mid-term break.
One Saturday night the boys refused to fetch water (from the stream) for the kitchen, so the cooks went home without cooking the dinner. The boys came to the Principal about 9 pm and complained about the lack of food. So the Principal fetches the cooks out of bed and told the boys to fetch water. They ate about midnight. On Sunday the boys again refused to bring water to the kitchen, so they got their breakfast about 11 am. Lunch didn't show for the same reason, and about 6:30 the girls complained that they had carried water but got no food. So several girls were asked to make stew for the rice. But they wanted their dinner as well as their noon meal.
The boys never did fetch water on Sunday, but were given rice out of the water the girls carried. The boys refused to eat it. The boys were demanding garri for which they would carry no water, and sent prefects and junior boys to complain for them. So the boys started to tear up the main hall and the staff room. The Principal told them they would have to pay for the damage, yet they continued. One boy was mistaken for a tutor and had his ribs crushed when they stoned him.
On Monday morn, the staff had a meeting to determine what should be done, and we decided to suspend all the prefects for dereliction of duty in failing to maintain order. The police came and the prefects were ordered to leave the compound—not to return until 7 August, when they should show cause why they should not be kicked out. On Tuesday we had a hearing for four boys who were caught "in the wrong places at the wrong time"—a monumental affair which lasted from 11am until 3:30 with no break. It was plain that the students were acting completely without plan and without sense. The Principal gave the students (or these who would come to the meeting) a lecture (superb, by the way, the man has great principles) and told them that what the post card which the PCV had written two years ago and about which Nigerians had gone up in arms was completely right—that these children were less than humans. He really dressed them down.
As a result, two boys have been dismissed just when they are nearing the finish line of their schooling—not so much out of justice, but as a necessary step to restore discipline to the school. I couldn't quite agree to the measure, but it would be impossible to do justice merely because honesty is not a value of this culture, and no one tells the truth: teachers, students or others. In the hearing from three people we got three stories about the activities of one person. The night before, two of the boys had appealed to me and told different stories than they were to tell the next day. I have since realized from other events not connected with the school that a man‘s word is worth nothing here. The regional Premier came and offered the people the world, but no one seriously believed him—it is election time. He made them happy by talking nice and making big promises.
The Jeep has finished. All of the wires fused and burned off the insulation. I have to carry the generator and voltage regulator to Enugu to test and steal these and the wires off another Jeep there which we have cannibalized. And we cannot get a new canvas top for at least three or four months. I will get another Honda [CB125 motorcycle].
Nancy [Gordon] is sick and has had to go to Enugu for hospitalization. She has malaria (very mild) and some kidney infection. She didn’t look sick, but the doctor made her go to Aba for lab tests and said she was sick. She had to charter a VW for $25 to take her there. She didn’t look or act or feel sick, but who knows?
I have read 35 books (by count) since I arrived in this our Nigeria. The Lost Cities 0f Africa is an excellent study of African archeology, and probably the first of its kind; Microbes and Us is about soil microbiology; but I found it very interesting, The latest one on Symbols and Civilization was a bit elementary at first, but the parts on morals, esthetics, and sociology were quite geed;
I have since bought by mail a book on Music Acoustics and Architecture which is the first really good book on this subject, written by the acoustical consultant for the Lincoln Center auditorium. It refers only to large auditoria, but the methods he uses could be applied and extended to cover small auditoria, including churches. There is a great need for better acoustics in churches, both for music and speech. It is stupid to have to use a microphone in a church seating 200 people. And the worst thing (which cannot be corrected by electronics) is that the organ and choir sound dreadful in a dead church. Barenek has done a great deal of research into design of concert and opera halls, and did the acoustical consulting for Lincoln Center in NY. The book was written before the building of Seattle's opera House, and it will be interesting to hear that hall after reading the book. If similar research could be done for church acoustics....
It has been cold the last two weeks—down to 76° sometimes. I have had to use the sheet at night.