There was a lady, a special lady principal who had big dreams and goals for her students of the Wesley Government School. She had a large vocabulary, and enunciated words the way I've never heard words spoken before. Her face expressed every letter of the word as it came out of her mouth. Her lips curled to capture and form all the sounds every word made. I've never witnessed anything since. I don't think.
She quoted quotes, made up quotes, wrote quotes, and re-worded quotes. I still remember when a chatty church school house of about 300 kids would be loud, much too loud for her tolerance she would quote, "empty vessels make the most noise." A church school house full of students instantly became quiet following the corrective lash. She quoted the bible, prayed the bible, and memorized whole chapters of bible and expected the same of her students. To this day, I still remember Psalm 121, "I will lift up mine eyes onto the hills from whence cometh my health, my health cometh from the Lord......." .
She made her students sing songs. Songs that I had never heard before. Teachers, Aspey and Walford would lead the singing. We learned and sang songs by, Simon and Garfunkel, Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk to you again, because a vision softly creeping. Left it seeds while I was sleeping, and vision that was planted in my brain still remain, and echo in sound of silence." Yes, the title of that song, was/is Sound of Silence. Who can forget the instructing duos lessons on singing, Sammy Dead...first couple verses as I remember them goes like this, "ah nuh teef sammy teef mek dem kill um, uh huh! ah nuh teef sammy teef mek dem kill um, uh huh, but ah grudgeful, dem grudgeful, kill sammy." Please join in as you remember the words..Sammy plant piece ah corn dong ah corna...another song we learned was, "I'd like to teach the World to sing in perfect harmony, I'd like to hold it in my hand and keep it company," by,
Whenever we left school at noon for lunch, we'd pray a prayer of blessing over our food that was at home. We would run through the prayer like this, "we thank de Lord for dis hour food bor more because of JesusChrist, let manna too"..STOP! STOP! STOP! HOLD IT! "A prayer is NOT a race! take your time and speak, say it again." she'd say, we'd say it again, and again and again, until hunger was no longer the reason we were racing through the prayer. By the time we were done she had taken up a good half hour of our lunch time.
I should've mentioned this earlier. When we arrived for school in the morning she'd make us sing the doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all screatures here below," STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! SCREATURES? she'd ask with great fury, WHAT ARE SCREATURES? we didn't care what screatures were, all that was important is that it sound beautifully and right when we sang it in the verse. She'd make us sing it over, and over and over and over again. I don't know if we had some wise guys who would purposely repeat screatures or a few forgetful souls who, out off habit kept repeating screatures over and over again.
How could one forget the doxology? It came after prayers, Psalms and the National Anthem was sung.
How could I have forgotten the National Anthem? "Isle of Beauty, Isle of splendor, Isle to allsosweet and fair, all must surely gaze in wonder at thy gifts so rich and rare.....Dominica, God hath bless thee with aclimbebegnin and bright...pastures green and flow'rs of beauty......." Boy! oh Boy! oh Boy! There was something about us singing these verses that would set her off. We would sing flowers of beauty and she DID NOT want to hear that. She wanted us the sing flow'rs of beauty. Our young minds just wouldn't do it cause to us its flowers and not flow'rs cause we've never spoken old English before and that just took us forever to get right. I think we spent our entire morning going over that part again and again. By the time we were done it was lunch time. OK. maybe not, but it surely felt like it.
She would make us sing the National Anthem until I would become light headed, well I didn't, but thinking about it right now makes me light headed.
When it was time to leave for school for the day we would sign our last and final song of the day, "now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows o'er the evening, still across the sky." I feel sleepy just singing it right now, cause I really felt like the day was truly over.
I'm the first one to complain about my commute but our Lady principal made a daily commute from Marigot to Wesley and back each and everyday. She didn't have her own transportation and she did that for years and was always on time except maybe twice only because she couldn't get a ride. Wow! who gave her that assignment? Didn't Marigot have a school where she could've been the principal? Her commute would've been so much closer and easier. I almost forgot to mention, she had her nephew with her as well doing the same commute all these years. A young smiley face, pleasant, kind and gracious young guy, who didn't have much friends in the village at first but he was really one of the nicest, smiliest guys ever!
My last memory of this stern, selfless and committed Principal was on a field to her house in Marigot that she organized for us students. Initially, I wasn't going, not because I decided I wasn't going to go but I was so adventurous, I had to make sure I didn't take on any new adventures that would cause me to miss out. Simple I had to be good for a minute. It was one of the best school days I've ever had, she fed and hosted us. I don't remember much except the grapefruit juice was delish.
I honor you, Mrs. Samuel for striving for and demanding excellence from your students. Your standards were certainly very high and may have seem a difficult expectation at the time. I am one of many who undoubtedly have been influenced by you. You've left your mark. If you have a memory and would like to share please do so.
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