Gulioni school and education

I was enrolled at Gulioni Primary School and walked up to there every morning with my older brother Ali or my friend Ali Mbamba, who lived in Funguni, few minutes from our home. The school was situated in the North of Stonetown and very important for a lot of families living in Zanzibar town.

Right from the start, I only liked a few school subjects. My favorite subjects were sports and working in the school garden, which was controlled by our teacher Mister Mwalimu Rajab and where we grew many tomato bushes and other vegetable. I can still remember that well.

Unfortunately, all the other subjects seemed too difficult for me – especially mathematics.

I also found it hard to imagine spending seven hours per day at a school desk. My motivation and enjoyment of school were limited. This continued throughout my entire time at school, when I finished Standard eight.

From today's perspective, I think it was simply too early for me to start school. I would have needed another year or two at home in my mother's care and would then have found it easier to cope with school life later on.

When I started school, life changed a lot for me as a little boy - and not to my advantage, from my point of view.

I felt constricted. I missed the carefree life of Makunduchi and didn't really understand what was expected of me - especially from my father. 

My father was focused extremly on education.He wanted all of us children to get a good schoo education to cope with the life in the best way. Many times he said to us children and still I can hear his voice in my memories:“ Education is your backbone and investment in your future!“

Why should school be so important?

There were so many more interesting things for me to do and to discover - building little wooden boats, playing soccer, strolling arround with the neighborhood kids, just daydreaming or visiting my beloved grandfather, babu Abdalla (Mjaclas Lhusni) in his little restaurant in Funguni.

After school, there were tutoring sessions at home every day. The older siblings had to help the younger ones. I still remember the big school board that hung in our living room. It was used for revision, practising and explaining school subjects.

My father's idea was perfect and, from today's perspective, understandable - he only wanted the best for us children.

For me as a little boy, however, it was a punishment. I wanted to play and not bury my nose in school books again in the afternoon.

The school system by itself was aligned with the British curriculum at that time. This was a great advantage for us students and provided many chances to go forward in our life and even to study abroad. But this I did not realize in my childhood.

Although I wasn't a really dedicated student and reached Standard eight, I enjoyed school education, which I was able to build on later and for which I am still grateful today.

At my current age and looking back on my 78 years of experience, I firmly believe that I absolutely had the capacity of my siblings. Many of them went to university and later completed a Master's degree. My sisters in particular were very successful.

With a little more patience and attention, I could have kept up with them.

Nevertheless, I am proud of what I have achieved. My good school education and my parents' motivation spurred me on so that I was able to keep up well in my job - in Zanzibar and later in Denmark.