When it rains at Nyakasura it pours. In my first term I went up to school to begin the day. It was raining. There was no one there. I went to the dormitory attached to my house to find everyone in bed. "We don't get up when it is raining," I was told. "Oh, don't we," I replied, and rushed around stripping blankets off sleeping bodies. We introduced a morning run, rain or shine, before school after that.
One night we had a severe earth tremor and from that same dormitory the boys rushed out in pain. Only the Batoro remained calm. They were used to this. The Head Boy, a Mutoro, went round taking the names of those outside for detention, for being, as he said, "out of the dormitory without permission."
Near the dormitory, not far from the Commander's grave, there was a large gum tree. It threatened to fall and flatten the dormitory. We decided to cut it down to avoid it falling on the dormitory, the school tug-of-war rope was tied around it and eight or ten workmen hung on. Unhappily, as the axe severed the trunk and the tree swayed, the rope snapped and the tree fell and cut the dormitory in two. At one end, a sick boy thought his last moment had come and made off, miraculously cured, into the bush to avoid further danger. It was a fortunate and narrow escape.
As remembered and written by Mr. E.C. Cooper, M.A., Headmaster, Between 1948 - 1954. Stay tuned for more Anecdotes of Life at Nyakasura!!
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