We had a piggery and a school farm. The pigs were fed with the leftover food from the dining hall and produce from the school farm.
For some people, the piggery was the most important and distinctive institution in the school. Every once in a while, pork would be offered for dinner. I do not remember how often these pork evenings were, but my recollection is that they were celebratory evenings.
The piggery was so important that Mawuli students have gone to the extent of calling themselves HAVIWO, which is Ewe for piglets, and during this week, when the 75th anniversary of the setting up of the school is being celebrated, the song HAVIWO would doubtless be heard around the country. Do pardon us, if you have not had the privilege of being part of the Mawuli phenomenon.
There are stories told about people who came to the school from other schools and happened to be there on one of the PORK DINNER nights, and that made them decide they would do everything in their power to come to Mawuli School for Sixth Form.
So, is it the pork that makes Mawuli stand out from other schools?
Does the school you go to really make such an influence on you that it defines you for the rest of your life? And does a school have such specific characteristics that once you go there, you are forever stamped? And would the characteristics have the same effect on everybody who attends the school?
And by “school” here, I am referring to secondary/high schools. The period of secondary/high school coincides with the adolescent years and the time that dramatic changes take place in your body and mind, and it is probably, therefore, not surprising that the place you spend those years and the people you spend them with would leave an indelible mark on you.
In Ghana, secondary/high school invariably means boarding school and would most likely mean the first time you leave home; it is not surprising, therefore, that your experiences would be exaggerated in your mind.
Mawuli School was established in 1950 at a time when the very few secondary schools in the country were set up and run firmly along the lines of British boarding “public” schools, where “public” means fee-paying, upper-class, private schools.
Thanks to our colonial British masters, Ghanaians were encouraged to regard the British education system as superior and look down on American educational qualifications, for example.
The few secondary schools in the country at the time aspired to be the Eton, Harrow and Winchester of Ghana, and the lucky few who got into them saw themselves as privileged and being “trained to rule”. There was a clear distinction between the technical and vocational schools, which were largely promoted by the churches and the more academic schools.
Then came Mawuli, a cooperation between the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the American Evangelical and Reformed Church and the colonial government. It aimed to be an academic institution, with emphasis on STEM.
Rev Prof C.G. Baeta, at the time, the Synod Clerk of the church, led the talent hunt and ended up with Rev Walter Paul Trost, head of Chemistry and Physics at Lakeland College, Sheboygan, in the United States, to come and establish Mawuli School.
Right from the beginning, there was no attempt to build an Eton or pretensions of a Harrow in Ho. Rev Trost and his band of adventurous American teachers, and the first Ghanaian teachers, were determined to nurture nation builders and not “leaders or rulers”.
For example, instead of the usual fanciful Latin or biblical terminology that was chosen as the motto of a school, they chose Head, Heart, Hand as the motto, to clearly demonstrate what type of school they wanted to build.
Right from the beginning, the emphasis was not just on science subjects but on practical living. There was Mr Desmond, the first Assistant Headmaster; he was a Science teacher, but he went everywhere with a carpenter’s belt around his waist, repairing chairs and windows, and anything else that needed fixing.
Probably the most hated item on the kit list for most schools in the country was the hoe and cutlass, and they were usually seen as items to be used for punishment.
In Mawuli School, we were encouraged to see the hoe and cutlass as items to be used in daily life. It did not matter if you were going to be a doctor or an engineer, or a teacher; a Mawuli student had to be a gardener and able to change a plug as well.
We might be “collegeviwo” in our villages or regarded as part of the elite, but we were trained to clean, to scrub, to repair and be orderly.
There was no question but that the American teachers who came to set up the school brought a down-to-earth, realistic attitude with them, which even the Ghanaian teachers who had been to fancy British universities soon accepted as what was needed for an emerging country.
It was not surprising that Mawuli soon got a reputation as a place for discipline, and people came from all parts of the country to the school. We did not have a cricket field, but we had a basketball park right from the beginning, and athletics was an integral part of school life.
It is interesting that not much fuss was made of the fact that it is a co-educational school, even though most secondary schools were and are single sex schools in the country.
In real life, boys and girls live side by side, and I daresay Mawuli School prepares its students much better for dealing with the emotional tensions of life after school.
We had Mrs Hazel, she was the senior housemistress and taught Domestic Science, but she would talk you through fitting your first bra and assure you your first heartbreak over some scrawny boy is imaginary.
For years, nobody failed Chemistry in Mawuli School, and it was taught by Miss Snitker.
Mrs Kwami taught Art and produced world-class artists.
The school choir was always in the top ranks.
I was no good at sports, but I was first class at being a cheerleader. I do feel desperately sorry for those who now spend only three years in secondary school.
I can only hope that the dream of planting a transformational institution in Mawuli succeeded to the point of ensuring that even those who spend so little time in Mawuli, compared to the five or seven years we spent, are emerging with the spirit of SELF-CONFIDENCE, which is the other name for MAWULI.
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