STORY OF THE GOLDEN LADIES
Posted Friday, February 17, 2012 08:41 PM

 

Hello Ladies, our daughters, our sisters, our friends!
Welcome to the story of Lourdes College. It is our story and your story. We shall take you fifty years back in the eyes of  your mothers, and unravel our umbilical cord, telling you where we were all born, the pregnancy, the labor pains, and the safe delivery of what is today the accomplished, phenomenal, courageous, resilient, motherly child of God, the Lourdes student and the Lourdes Ex student.
We shall talk about our sisters of blessed memory who made their contributions on the stage of life, each in her own designed manner and are now with the Lord praying for us all. It will be fun to read the details of those five long, tedious but often fun filled early years- our academic pursuits, the meals, our cultural life, even our social life- we had fun too; and of course how did we communicate- travel and telephone. We realize that we are all created for a reason, therefore we  shall  tell you about the contributions some of us are living behind in our modest attempt to make the world a better place than we met it. The girls are ready with answers to your questions and comments for clarifications. We invite you all to be part of our conversation as we tell our story. So relax and have fun!
 
But who are we?
We are the Golden Girls, alias the dinosaurs! But in no way are we going to be extinct, not any time soon, so we would rather you call us the Golden Girls – we are seasoned, precious, relished, resilient, durable, patient and peaceful. Our story begins in the Saint Joseph primary school,(the now Catholic University of Bamenda) which served as our initial classrooms, pending the completion of the two room structure which Reverend Father Nabben relentlessly worked on to make his dream come true -  a Catholic girls college in the Bamenda region!
 
In October 1963 some 35 virgin girls were selected to launch this dream project and by January 1964 the numbers had increased to 56. The Rosary Sisters went from school to school to conduct the interviews in the headmaster’s offices and it was a pride to be chosen but believe you me, some of us would have preferred to attend Okoyong, Mamfe, because that was the name we knew.  But Reverend Mother Aquinas and Sister Victor, transferred from Okoyong gave us all the petting to keep us in Lourdes. I remember vividly the good old Saturdays when they would invite me to the convent to clean and polish their brass decorations and serve me with tea and biscuits! The convent now serves as the mechanic’s office, I believe, right above from the Mankon Cathedral on the way to the Arch Bishop’s residence. After the brief transition in the Saint Joseph School we relocated to the newly constructed buildings that served as classrooms A and B, and the principal’s office. There was no teacher’s office, no library, no science lab, no play field.  The whole premise was a big “chantier” with caterpillar machines plowing round the clock leaving behind mounds of ground. We would watch from the classroom window, Father Nabben in his old beaten Voxwagen driving up the hill and giving instructions to the “caterpillar man” and a few builders who dug the foundations and crack the building stones by hand. By the second year our 50.000 F( CFA) per year school fees were already paying off - more classrooms added,  a science lab and a teachers room carved out in the basement of what served as the most magnificent structure of our time.
 
One structure served as a residence for St. Gabriel and St. Bridget later changed into Immaculata and Bernadette houses. Grass mattress, tinker and “potmanto “boxes were in mode, but the chosen few had cotton mattresses, iron trunks for their snacks.  Our senior prefect was Edith Boma, chosen mostly for her maturity, but I must admit she was revered. As punishment she would ask you to fetch water from down the stream, pour it in front of her and request that you fetch more water. But you know what?  That’s what built our resilience. By the end of the first year some relative order and pattern of life had been established and we were ready to receive the second batch of our sisters.
 
 
By Seraphine Lainjo Tata - Golden Lady

La Marj