THE last article in this series on Crossing the Divide focused on the reunion at Holy Cross College that I had the good fortune of attending on the chiefly island of Taveuni in August this year. There were many snippets in that article that I could not expand on because of the space
constraints involved in writing such newspaper articles. Many of you either called me, messaged me or asked me in person for further details on what I had written in that article. I dedicate this one thus on throwing more light on the various issues I kept brief in my last article on the school Golden Jubilee and reunion at Holy Cross College in August 2023.
Wairiki Catholic Mission
LIKE its predecessors, the Catholic church arrived in Fiji amid great hostility and resistance on August 12, 1844. It was on the island of Namuka that the first Catholic cross was planted. From there, the faith spread to the rest of the country with some localities having notably large concentrations of Catholics. At this point in time, the Catholic congregation comprises just over 9 per cent of the population. The Catholic church’s enormous contribution to education in Fiji cannot be overemphasised.
At this juncture, it has a total of 63 schools scattered all over the country. Of these, 19 are secondary schools and 44 primary ones. There are also over 20 pre-schools and a number of vocational training centres that are overseen by the Catholic Archdiocese. Notable among these are the Montfort Boys Town in Veisari, the Chevalier Training Centre at Wainadoi and the Marist Training Centre at Tutu in Taveuni.
Among the more famous Catholic schools in Fiji are Marist Brothers High School (Suva), St Joseph’s Secondary School (Suva), St Bede’s College (Savsavu), St John’s College (Cawaci, Levuka), St Thomas Secondary School (Lautoka) and Xavier College (Ba). Wairiki Catholic Mission School, where I spent one year as a primary school student and Wairiki Junior Secondary School where I spent four years as a secondary school student, were (and still are) very much a part of the Catholic Mission in Fiji. The school only attained secondary school status in 1976.
When I moved from primary to secondary at Wairiki, the two Form 1 classrooms were partitioned parts of one bure with a gravel floor and bamboo walls that reached only halfway up the height of the rooms. Beside that was another similar bure that housed the Form Fours.
The main administration building where the staff, library and Forms two and three were accommodated, were located at the top of the slope that made up the whole school complex.
The evolving terrain around the slope had been newly bulldozed and was gleefully taken over by sensitive grass (kuikui). This is a weed that wilts when touched – hence the name sensitive grass – and has wicked thorns. This weed can grow almost anywhere and once established, is able to outmuscle other weeds for the territory. In fact, it is this weed that the former SDL Minister for Women, Adi Asenaca Caucau, once used to describe “Fiji Indians” in our Parliament. We also did not want this weed at Wairiki and a most ingenuous method was used to get rid of it.
Discipline
Wairiki Junior Secondary School’s first, and only principal, Master Sakiusa Sing was well known for his insistence on discipline and adherence to school rules and established etiquette. Being from a rural background himself, he knew and well understood how difficult it
was to manage and control rural children from widely differing backgrounds. To top it off, he was handling both boarders and day-scholars. I was one of the few day-scholars who was travelling by bus daily from Vuna to Wairiki. We got on the bus at 6am and arrived home at 6pm
covered in dust from the dirt roads. Moving back to the issue of discipline, Master Sakiusa used to keep a number of short hosepipes that appeared to be color-coded. I remember being at the receiving end of it only once in my four years at Wairiki Junior Secondary School. Students feared it greatly and were always careful about following rules and not falling foul of the teachers.
The hosepipe, however, was only one of a range of options that Master Sakiusa used in order to keep his charges on the straight and narrow. The sensitive grass that was mentioned earlier was a most useful option.
For breaches of conduct, we were promptly tasked to pull out a number, take them to the principal and count them out by the number of roots. The focus on the roots was to avoid cheating because stems could be easily split to meet the quota! I don’t think too many of us were
able to avoid this punishment. I was put to it a number of times when I was in Form 1. Despite the sternness of the man and his strict application of rules and discipline, Master Sakiusa was a much respected, loved and admired principal.
It was he who instilled discipline in us. It was he who pushed us to excel through hard work, perseverance and focused effort. On Fridays, we were required to bring our knives for weeding and cleaning the school compound.
Everyone was involved in this exercise for an hour after lunch.
After that, we were all at the grounds playing sports. The inter-school athletics competition had become an annual calendar event for secondary schools and Wairiki was ably led in this direction by Master Sakiusa Sing and former South Pacific Games rep, Master Ioane Ravuso. Many years later, I met Master Ioane at Lautoka where I was teaching a summer class. He was pleasantly surprised to see me, and
his embrace is still cherished today. Thus, at Wairiki, we were focused on academic work and sports as well as gardening and cleaning our surroundings. This focus on mental as well as physical development prepared us for better, healthier and more productive lives as members of society later on.
There is one incident that is etched in my memory about Master Sakiusa, his adherence to rules and discipline. We were in Form 1 and for day-scholars, we had our own lunch around the school compound. As soon as the bell rang for lunch, the boarders rushed off to their mess hall while we looked for a nice spot to share our lunches.
This day, when the bell rang for the first afternoon class after lunch, we were surprised to see Master Sakiusa walking up to our classroom with a heavy head. There was no hosepipe in his hands, so we were curious to know what this was about.
As soon as he entered the room, we all stood up and said, “good afternoon, Sir”.
He responded and asked us to take our seats before saying, “we’ll play a game today. Are you ready?” He then asked us to face each other in pairs and sniff each other’s hands. The whole exercise was very perplexing, but we did it anyway. Then he asked each one of us, “what did you smell?”. Four of us said, “pineapple” and the game was over. He promptly prodded the four whose hands smelt of pineapple and ominously marched them out of the classroom to his office. We only found out later that pineapples were being stolen from our school farm and students were suspected. Master Sakiusa had his thieves!
Champion quiz team
It was 1976 and the national quiz was a big thing on the school scene. It was hugely popular and used to air over Radio Fiji at 6pm on Sundays.
Master Sakiusa wanted us to participate and accosted me one morning as we waited for the 8am bell to ring. He asked me if I knew about the national quiz, Na Kilakila Mada, Aap Kitna Jaante Haen. When I responded that I always listened to it with my father at home, he invited
me to his office and started bombarding me with quiz-type questions. Two days later, he told me that I was on the Wairiki quiz team with Sakaraia Mateicolo (Vuki) and Sheila Devi (daughter of Ambaram Meridian). We were then coached by him daily in his office which also housed the school library in the same room. He was particularly pleased to know that Sheila and I were daily readers of the newspapers. Sakaraia was given the same to read in the library.
Not too long after that, we were told that we were going to Labasa to take on the quiz teams from the Northern Division. Our accompanying teacher was Sister Paula Christine (seen in the teachers’ photo below).
There is much to say about the flight and the stay in Labasa, but I need to cut this short here.
I distinctly remember eating chicken in white sauce at the Grand Eastern Hotel and immediately deciding that it was going to be my favourite dish for life. Our first match was against All Saints Secondary School and we beat them without too much fuss. This set us up for the final against Labasa College who had swept aside St Bede’s College. The venue was again All Saints Secondary School, but this time they were rooting for us against an old foe. Labasa College had a huge reputation having reached the Fiji finals a number of times and even winning it. They had three sixth-formers in their team, but we were better on the day and caused a huge upset.
We were the unexpected Northern Division Quiz Champions of 1976 and we had a 13-year-old with two fifth-formers in our team. Sheila Devi forged a successful career and is now based in London. Sakaraia Vuki went on to teach at Marist Brothers High School. He was also a highly respected rugby referee who continued his career in Australia where he now resides.
Yours truly had a bumpy ride to his PhD and is now back at USP where he hopes to retire.
I will develop this further next week.
DR SUBHASH APPANNA is a senior USP academic who has been writing on issues of historical and national significance. The views
expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employer. subhash.appana@ usp.ac.fj
