Back to School in Kandy

Back to Girl’s High School in Kandy January 1956

My first day back in the school where I began my education in Kindergarten five and a half years earlier was a bit chaotic.

One of the senior girls guided me to my new classroom. 

She said she was my House captain. I didn’t understand what that meant. Later I learned that I was a member of the Langdon House. 

She was Geraldine Ekanayake.

The four houses are Langdon, Lawrance, Eaton, and Sansom. 

Their respective house colours are, Green, Yellow, Dark Blue, Light Blue.

She had asked me something about what 

Grade or Standard I had been in the past year. 

Or maybe she asked what Grade I was to be in this year. 

I’m not sure which question I replied to as I had forgotten many words and was not sure how to speak English. 

Finnish managed to bury my English vocabulary just in two and a half years away from the language. 

The classroom was in a barrack at the top of a flight of concrete steps. I was the only white girl – almost head and shoulders taller than all my classmates.  I guess I had said I was in grade three. 

I could not explain that the school year in Finland had ended in the spring of the year before, so I should start in the fourth grade. We had just moved up to Kandy the day before. 

Dad drove us to school. 

If Mother had come along, she could have explained better. I ended up in third grade and was ashamed when I was taller than everyone else. They again were shy to talk to me as I was white, blond and much taller than them. My new classmates had all black hair and were dark-skinned. They whispered something that I did not understand. I thought they were talking about me. I wanted to be friends with them - but it seemed impossible.

Our teacher was kind, and soon I started to do well in English and other subjects. I wrote a letter to Grandmother and my aunts in Finnish that we were thirty-five students in the class. We were all dressed in a white school uniform and had a tie with stripes in the school's four colors: green, yellow, dark blue and light blue. I also learned to write my name in Sinhala. 

One day after school I was met by two smiling girls at the bottom of the hill.

“Hello. Do you want to be friends with us?”

I was surprised and happy. Imagine someone who was not in my class wanted to be friends with me. The girls were Rosemary and Geraldine Harvie. 

As my English improved, I was easy for me to learn all other subjects. The mistake that put me one Grade behind my peers was corrected.  The following year I could skip a Grade. 

I could be with friends my age. Rosemary was in that class and became one of my close friends.

One day while I still was in Grade three, when my class had gymnastics on a field behind our classroom, a Senior student came to watch us. She was the vice-captain of Langdon House, Jennifer Ambanpola.

She called me out and said, 

“You are a member of Langdon House. 

Do you want to take part in a race for your House?”

“I don’t know if I can run fast,” I stammered.

“You can always try.”

That was the first building block of being a part of a group where I felt I belonged. I began to learn an ongoing lesson of loyalty over the following six years. Every positive achievement, whether in my studies or sports, in hygiene or behavior, added a point to my House, Langdon, as well as to my report card at the end of each year. In the same way, all unfavorable actions, poor marks in exams or in sports deleted points for the House and for me. I decided to try to do the best I could. What was good for me was good for all.