first sChool– rolilahla BeCoMes nelson

holihlahla was 7 years old when he entered the singleroom schoolhouse in a pair of his father’s trousers cut off at the knee and cinched at the waist with a piece of string. On his first day of school his teacher, Miss Mdingane, ‘’according to the custom among Africans in those days’’, gave each of the children an English name. the name she assigned to Mandela was Nelson.

Neither Nelson Mandela nor anyone else has any clear idea why that particular name was chosen. What is more certain, however, is that the choice of an English name, as Mandela points out, was ‘’due to the british bias of our education... in which british ideas, british culture, british institutions were automatically assumed to be superior. there was no such thing as African culture.’’ It was a way of life known to all trinidad and tobago students and educators prior to the governmental changes initiated in schools’ curricula following our independence from british rule in August 1962.

Rolihlahla’s father died when he was 9 years old. ‘’After a brief period of mourning’’, his mother informed him that he would be leaving Qunu. On a walk that presaged his own long journey to fulfilment of his life’s goals, they set out westward, early one morning, travelling ‘’by foot and in silence, until the sun was sinking...toward the horizon’’ on an exhausting journey… up and down hills, past numerous villages, but… (they) did not pause”.