There was this oddity in some Jewish Egyptian families: they sent their children to Catholic schools! Strangely enough there were not many conversions to Catholicism, even though we listened to prayers and Catechism every day!
Not speaking a word of English, my parents chose to send me to The Alvernia English Convent School For Girls in Zamalek to begin my education because I was a very disobedient child and no matter what my parents said, I never obeyed. So they shopped around and found that Alvernia was the school that had the greatest discipline. If the nuns could not tame me then no one would!
I was four when I started my kindergarten. I went to school with my English style uniform, felt hat and carried a small wicker basket with my meal in it.
In school, Sister Mary Kitchenisa (as we called her) heated our lunch at noon.
The school bus picked me up regularly and I rarely missed it. If I did, then it was very complicated to go to Zamalek on my own and my mother had to accompany me.
The nuns being pure Irish did not understand a word of French let alone Arabic. Everything was in English! At the beginning I was lost and unhappy!
My sister, for example, came to Alvernia just for one day and refused to go back! She was sent to the Lycée.
There were several other English schools but almost all were directed by missionary nuns or priests to save us from going to hell.
The pendant school for boys was Victoria College.
There, discipline was no joke!
When the boys misbehaved they received a caning by the headmaster who asked the culprit to bend on a stool and administered his strokes on the naked back of the knee. The pain was excruciating! The boys called caning: torture.
Few were the ones to escape that!
In the girls’ schools there was no caning but pulling and twisting of ears. This can be as painful as caning especially on young ears. The favourite punishment however was to put the girl facing a corner and going on with the lesson.
It was extremely tiring to stand without moving but sister did not care about that. Or, she put the culprit outside till the lesson was over. That was not so tiring but then the lesson was completely lost.
The sisters, believing I was deaf, kept saying about me: “and you know sister she never even cries!”
Another way of punishment was to impose a certain number of lines, never fewer than 100. When these lines were not done, they went up to 500!
It was forbidden to talk in class and anyone who did that was immediately punished. If the pupil had been very naughty, she was sent to Mother Superior who would go on with a long speech about what a great honour it was to be in this school and that the uniform was to be respected in all possible ways!
Concerning uniforms these had to correspond in every detail to the picture in the regulation manual:
In summer: white, long-sleeved blouse, a tie around the collar, lighter blue uniform with all the appreciated English decorations: badge, colour of the section then for those who were angels a prefect’s badge. At the waist the sash tied correctly according to regulations. A straw hat decorated our head and on our feet strict, black-laced shoes with white socks. The hem of the uniforms had to cover the knees because it was indecent to show that (sexy) part of the body.
In winter: dark blue uniform, English style blazer, the school badge and felt hat.
Regular inspections took place. At least once a week!
Any uniform that was not in order was the reason for a letter to the parents to remind them of the prestige of that school and how to represent it correctly.
That was funny because most parents did not understand one word of English and had difficulty in deciphering what Mother Superior wrote!
Oxford and Cambridge Boards homologated these schools.
We learned all the English subjects: our nuns taught us English Poetry, English Maths, English History, the simplified version of Shakespeare’s plays and calligraphy conscientiously. The girls who came out had that unmistakable writing! We also had drawing, sewing and singing.
A laywoman taught gym.
Our school was a British colony on another planet!
For my secondary education, once I had started in English and that English seemed to be the language of the future - remember the Americans and the British Commonwealth ended the 2nd W.W. successfully - I went to St.Claire’s College for girls, in Heliopolis. To go there I took the Metro built by Baron Empain and sat in the harem compartment.
By then the teachers had moulded us into typical young English ladies and we knew all about English Grammar, English History, Poetry, William Shakespeare and unfortunately their strange system of weights, measures and surfaces, plus their monetary system which was in L.s.d. (pounds, shillings and pence). Not forgetting Algebra and Geometry. For a mysterious reason I was good in Algebra but certainly not in Geometry (impossibility to understand the theorems).
We were living in a metric system where our Egyptian pound was 100 piastres and one piastre 10 (?) millims, but we had to know that the English drove in miles, (1,607 mtrs) or weighed butter, meat and fruit in lbs (454grs), their beer by the pint, (0,473 grs) and that their yard was not one metre at all but 91 centimetres. The British ton was 1,O16 grs, whereas the American ton was 907,18 grs.
And this is only part of the headache. Racing tracks were measured in furlongs equalling 201, 17mtrs!
They never did anything like the rest of the world!
We also learned that Napoleon was an adventurer only there to exasperate the British! The Duke of Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo (in Belgium), and Nelson defeated Napoleon at Aboukir (in Egypt). Mainly that everything British was better than the rest of the world! In short all the rest was zarta!
We were given a lot of homework and we had to study the maths tables until we dropped. I never completely assimilated all of them especially the table of 9! I remember taking my book along with me when we went on picnics to the Pyramids, to the Jardin Zoologique or to the Japanese Gardens in Helouan, and studying during that extraordinary season we called winter!
I had a desperate time solving problems and though my dad was a chartered accountant it sounded like Chinese to him. He scratched his head and confessed he did not understand the problems! Because the tap was leaking in British liquid measures or that the car was filled in British gallons (4,546 and the US gallon being 3,785 litres) and running at 30 miles an hour (one mile is 1,609km).
It was the same for every other subject.
When I had to study for a dictation there was no one to make me practise.
So I had to write certain words ten or twenty times to make sure I had them correctly. That is how I became very good in dictation.
Later this acquired love of the English language led me to become an author.
At St.Claire’s College too the uniform was all-essential.
We wore the famous dark pleated skirt and our spotless white blouse in summer had to be decorated with a large frilly collar and around the neck a long string with pompons, (red, blue and white of course).
In winter we changed into a dark blue blouse and added the English blazer with the school badge. Not forgetting the dark blue felt hat transforming us into English pupils! I hated that hat and as soon as I could, stuffed it into my school bag. Once I was caught and given 100 lines, which I did not do. They were turned to 500! I had my fair share of punishments!
We were forbidden to talk to any boy when wearing their beloved uniform because then we would disgrace it!
At the end of a school year we had a Gym Feast trained by Monsieur Hemo, and his famous “claquette”. Our gym teacher did not speak a word of English!
Maybe they were right to be so rigid because the school was greatly renowned.
One of King Hussein’s numerous wives (Dina of Jordan) came out of St.Claire’s. Several other well-known public figures added their names to the prestigious list. This school still exists today.
I played my first tennis matches trained by a “master”. Then at University, I was the Tennis captain.
Gradually and at long last, (I did not become a princess) I learned discipline and became a good student.
I sat for my Oxford and Cambridge exams then went to A.U.C. (University). Our University professors considered the girls coming out of St.Claire’s College as superior in English and they wrote their appreciation on our tests!
Later, I became a teacher (!) first in Milan after our exile, then in Belgium where I got married.
I too was a strict teacher but never pulled anyone’s ear or made any hurtful and unkind remarks such as our Sisters did: “you are hopelessly stupid or you will never succeed in life” or other such niceties!!
I now know that my parents did the right thing by sending me there to become what I am.
They canalised my energies into something meaningful!
The discipline learned in school did not stop my heart from bleeding when we left Egypt but helped me to survive.
By Suzy Vidal, author of The Jasmine Necklace Trilogy.
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