After my heartbreaking visit to the now Kyererezi (formerly Mfashumwana) village, I decided to visit one of the greatest colleges in the region and that is none other than St. Leo’s College Kyegobe. I was driven to visiting the school out of curiosity more than anything else. I wanted to have a firsthand view of the school nearly two decades after having graduated from the same. Unsurprisingly much has changed. Where there once stood Kinyamasika, a girl’s school for teachers, there is now a seminary for Catholic fathers. I suppose, after countless clashes between the “Bakecuru” (old ladies) of Kinyamasika and the students of St. Leo’s College, the Bishop of Fort Portal Diocese, on whose land all these schools sat and in whose authority they had been vested, decided to do away with the old ladies institution as a way of not only stopping the fights but also instilling some morality in the St. Leo’s boys some of who could not bear the site or thought of some skirt wearers being in their vicinity. Of course, nearly everything in the area has changed. The “Banyatereza” sisters have been shifted to Virika maybe as a precaution for them not to tempt the would be Padres! I suppose, there will be no more feuding between the two institutions. I remember, there was a real ‘civil war’ between the teacher training college, known to the boys as the Zone, and the St. Leo’s students. The row erupted because one Lobo took it upon himself to break the code of conduct by revealing the actual meaning of the term ‘Zone’, in return, the Kinyamasika students ran amok and made a grave mistake of naming their loos ‘St. Leo’s’. The African saying goes, “never beat the drums of war unless you are ready to fight”. But the ladies beat the drums when they did not have a single soldier to use against St. Leo’s a haven of many fighters. We had fought the battle of Bukwali and emerged victorious, the same applied to the battles of Karubbaho and Gweri. In the later, the village of Gweri had emerged the vanquished and the bishop, His Lordship Serapio Magambo (R.I.P), decided to have the villagers evicted from all land neighbouring with the school as a way of curtailing any future wars of this nature. Now, all this seams just like yesterday. I can vividly recall what I looked like nearly two decades ago. Despite being a “kagosi” (a term used to refer to the so called Kadogos), I was more often than not, on the frontline seeking glory. In fact, it was the likes of us that were very dangerous at school; we used to attack like lions and stung like bees. I laugh now at the thought of what I was then and what I am, it is really inconceivable that, a once tinny fellow as thin as a stick and short like an anthill is now so towering! Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm
