Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your connection to Bishop Mckenzie International School?

Right. So my name is Gail De Oliveira and I’ve been associated with Bishop Mackenzie since 1988. We originally went to Malawi for a three-year contract and ended up staying 32 years. So it’s been a long history with Bishop Mackenzie. 

My husband actually has an even longer connection in that he actually went to Bishop Mackenzie. He was one of the original students of Bishop Mackenzie, because before Bishop Mackenzie it was Lilongwe Primary. And he was at school at the Lilongwe Primary, and then he went to Bishop Mackenzie, and then, after some insurrection in Lilongwe at the time, and his parents decided to leave Malawi and go to Zimbabwe. I met him in Zimbabwe, and we got married in Zimbabwe and then we went to South Africa after living in Zimbabwe. So we’ve done the central region of Africa all our lives. 

When he was on business visiting Malawi. It took him back to his early days, his early childhood, and he decided that he’d like to give it a go and seeing as it was only 3 years, I agreed that we would go to Malawi for those 3 years, having never visited it myself. So that was our background, on going to Malawi.

What years was your husband at Lilongwe Primary? 

Well, it was Lilongwe primary. I think he was there for 3 years. So they left in 1961. So we’re going back to 1958, and then they left in 61. So that’s quite a long connection.

Why did your husband and their family leave Lilongwe in the first place?

Well, the situation at that moment was that they were living in Lilongwe and the school was attacked. And in fact the original classroom block if you carefully look, you will see bullet holes that are still there from those attacks many years ago. And his mother and father were so afraid for the safety of their children, they were actually taken to school in army trucks as protection. And so their mother and father decided that this was too much of a threat at that moment in time, so they decided to emigrate and go to Zimbabwe or Rhodesia, as it was in those days. So they went through some very traumatic times, and so he has some very interesting memories of that period of time. Also, if you think about it, being a primary school student, it could have been quite traumatic, but he lived through it, and the family has got very, very good memories of Malawi. In fact, he has a brother and two sisters who were born in Malawi. Two of them were born in Blantyre, and the other one was actually born in Lilongwe in what was the top hospital on Mtunthama drive, which is now, I think, the AIDS and some other organization. At the top hospital. 

How did your husband’s family come to Lilongwe in the first place?

His mother and father were from Portugal and when they got married. They decided they wanted to seek their fortune outside of Portugal. His father was a draftsman cum engineer, and he decided to go to Mozambique. When they got to Mozambique, they didn’t like Mozambique. It was very, very rustic and informal, and there wasn’t much going for a family type situation, so he had heard from friends who’d gone to Malawi or Nyasaland, as it was in those days that there were things going on in Blantyre, and that maybe he would like to join in business in Blantyre. So he came over to Blantyre and had an interview, and then they decided right. I think my husband was about 8 months old. And they then went to Blantyre, and he then grew up in Blantyre. Hence the other 3 siblings that were born were born in NyasaLand in that time, so two of them in Blantyre and then the 3rd sibling that was born in Lilongwe.

What was his day-to-day life like as a student at that time?

Okay. So my husband really enjoyed being at Bishop Mackenzie. Well, Lilongwe Primary as it was then, and it was a boarding school at that time. Because there were farmers in the area that didn’t have places for their children to go to school.

So, I don’t know if you have heard of the Row Roberts family? The Row Roberts were both teachers who came from Zimbabwe and they taught at Bishop Mackenzie. In fact, Mr. Row Roberts ended up being the head of the hostel for boys at Bishop Mackenzie, but my husband was a day scholar. But of course, then there were other students who were in the hostel, and they were the boarders. But it was in general more like a family type school, so that you had the borders in what is now the secondary school, that’s where the boarding houses were.

There were old families that were associated with Bishop Mackenzie, the Bissonni’s, and Karen Bissoni, I think, was a teacher at Bishop Mackenzie at one stage. She was married to Claudio Bissoni. Those sorts of families have been associated with the Bishop Mackenzie for many, many years. The Barons were part of the community at that stage as well, and the Armstrong’s, I think. There were several old families, tobacco farmers in the area. All of those children were associated with Bishop Mackenzie over the years.

What would a day have been like for a day scholar?

They would come to school in the morning and start fairly early and then they would have their afternoon activities. There would be other activities that the borders would be involved in and then they would obviously go back to the dormitories, and they would continue with whatever organization they would have there. And obviously they were catered for food and what have you.

It was not a normal, like boarding school situation, but of course, then you would have some of the children who would stay for afternoon activities, and they would develop friendships. And then maybe the borders would be able to go out for a little while. But yeah, it was generally more like a family atmosphere. Because it was not a big school at that stage. It was quite a small school, I mean, when I look at the size of Bishop Mackenzie now. It’s huge in comparison to what it was in those days.

What was it like for you in 1988 coming to the school for the 1st time?

Well, when we, when we decided to come to Malawi, the people that offered my husband a job, said that they could fly me up to have a look at the whole setup and one of my big worries was schooling. So one of the 1st things that we did was to go to Bishop Mackenzie and have a look at Bishop Mackenzie. And I was very pleasantly surprised. Because, growing up in Zimbabwe or in Salisbury as it was in those days, it reminded me of the schooling that I had as a child in Rhodesia. And so I thought, well, I’m sure my kids would love that same sort of experience of being in a more rural type area, not so much commercial. 

We were coming from Pretoria, which going from Harare to Pretoria, it was like turning the clock forward 20 years. And we were very overawed by the mechanism, the commerciality of it all. It was a fast forward movement. And so, coming to Malawi and having a look around to see whether the children would enjoy that, it was like turning the clock back again 10 years, or maybe even 20 years, because things were much slower. There was more time to have a family life. I mean my husband was living- we were living in Pretoria, but he would travel to Johannesburg, and it would take him 3 quarters of an hour to get to work, and so when he came home, he was tired. He didn’t have much time for children at all and so this would give us a more family-based life. And the children, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about where they went and what they did. 

And in those days life was so simple. You know, the children could get on their bicycles, and they could ride around to their friends, and they could meet each other, and they could go through the bush where there wasn’t anybody, and they would play their games, and then they would come home, maybe have afternoon tea at home. And then the children- of course, no television in those days, either, so they had so many things that they would get up to. They would go to each other’s houses over the weekends for sleepovers, and we would have videos, because that was the only thing that we had. They would be recorded videos that we got from a video shop and that was the highlight of television. So it was very controlled. So it was a very much more family orientated life.

So I saw Bishop Mackenzie. I said to my husband, no problem. We could actually live there, and it’s only 3 years. We’ll be fine with that. So we went back to South Africa, and we explained to the children. Right, we’re going to leave, and we’re going to go and live in Malawi. ‘So what is it like there?’ So I said, Well, it’s not like Pretoria. It’s a lot more simple but there’s lots of things for you to do. There’s a golf club that you can go and play sports. There’s lots of activities at school. There’s lots of children that there- children come from very different backgrounds. 

So don’t forget now we’ve come from Rhodesia in those days. Which was beginning of multiracial-type schools where children with- there were no colour bars at all in in Rhodesia at that stage. And then we went to South Africa, which was then under the apartheid regime, and all of a sudden the children couldn’t understand why we didn’t see so many black children. Because it was very much- you had to have special permits to be in the cities. So, if you had a cleaner that came to clean your house, she or he obviously didn’t come with their family, so you didn’t see black children. They weren’t allowed in the areas. And then we got to to Malawi and all of a sudden there were these children again, and they were interacting with everybody, and they were black children in the school. 

So, this was very good for our children. They were able to see life from different perspectives again, which was very- how can I say? It was very grounding for them. And as a result, our children probably- they don’t have a racial bone in their bodies. You know they’ve been exposed to children from all backgrounds. The children, I mean-. We had people that lived on the property, and they had families and they had their children. So, our children were having games in the afternoons with the children of the staff, and they would play with black children at school, and so all of that was very normalising for them. 

So when it came to going to high school, because by that stage now they’ve got into the system at Bishop Mackenzie, and we’re only going to be there for 3 years. But Bishop Mackenzie at that stage didn’t have a secondary school. It had form one and form 2, and that was it. If you wanted the children to go and have a higher education at senior school, they had to go out of the country they had to. Or they could go down to Blantyre, and they could go to St. Andrews. but then they were there. And St. Andrews at that stage didn’t have that much in the form of extracurricular activities. You know, so your sports, there wasn’t that much competition there, and the boys were keen on playing Rugby and cricket and all of those games, and they had it at St. Andrews. But who were they going to play against? Because there wasn’t that much of a team spirit at Bishop Mckenzie.

So we decided, being Catholics. that we would look at Catholic schools in South Africa, and see whether we could get them into Catholic boarding schools, again, because of the multiracial aspect of it. And so Christian Brothers College came up, and the boys then decided that that’s where they would like to go. So they sat entrance exams, and they went to Christian Brothers College in Pretoria, 2 of them went there. And so that exposure to multiracial and multicultural activities continued. so much so that they ended up being at school with the son of the ambassador of Malawi in Pretoria. So he was – William Malinke – was such a-. They had that type of child in their class, and so, therefore, a very broad background at how things are in Bishop Mackenzie, and how they were when they went outside of Bishop Mackenzie.

What was it like having multiple generations of your family attend BMIS?

Well, it’s not very many people that can actually say that their children went to the same school that their father did. So unless you are in a country like America or in the UK. And you haven’t travelled you know. As soon as you travel you tend to go to different continents and you work in those continents. So therefore, you’re not going to have the continuity of various experiences. So our children were fortunate in that they went to the same school as their father, and had similar experiences. They got to experience the weekends at the lake fishing, sailing, general experiences within the country, which involved people from different backgrounds, from different, I would say they were exposed to people from every walk of life, you know, from ambassador’s kids, to the gardeners in our home, that type of thing. So there was- They developed very broad mindedness. And we’re very comfortable dealing with people from every background. So that stood them in good stead when they left school, and they and they went out into the big, wide world. 

Some of the stories that they tell about going to school, about being educated in Africa. The average person that they deal with – because we’ve got one who lives in Portugal, one that lived in the UK, who’s just come to live in Cyprus with us now and the other one is in Pretoria. So, some of the stories that they tell, people say that is not possible. That is not possible that you have those stories to tell. And they said, Oh, but it is these. This is what it was like growing up in Africa. So they could write books actually. And they think outside of the box. They’re not in that general – how can I put it? Formation? They have a different way of thinking. If they see a problem, they don’t say, Oh, we’ve hit a problem. So what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? They’ve already thought about what the solution to the problem is because they’ve been exposed to so many different happenings in their lives.

What are the highlights or key memories that your family have from Bishop Mckenzie?

I think the highlights are the international days. The international days from the beginning, which were yes, there were a few different nationalities there. But towards the end, when Malawi stabilised and there were so many different embassies represented at Bishop Mackenzie, and so many different organisations that were represented. I mean, I think, from about 10 to 15 nationalities. and then you go where you end up with 35 different nationalities at Bishop Mackenzie. And I think, the last one that I was involved in, I think we got to about 40 different nationalities.

There were a couple of people that were the only person representing that country. But it was okay, because it meant that international day was really international day. And when we had the food and the culture exchanges, it was such an event and such a happening we tasted, and we danced, and we exchanged all sorts of stories. I mean having people come in and tell stories in their mother tongues of all sorts of nationalities, I mean, that’s when you got to see Bishop Mackenzie change from an ordinary type of African school to definitely an international school.

What was the transition like for BMIS to become an International School

Well, the first period of teaching that I had at Bishop Mackenzie, I started where I was in the classroom as like, almost like an educational support type person. Where I would go in, and there would be groups of children who had difficulties with reading or spelling, or understanding what they needed to do. So I was taken on, and I would go from reception all the way through to year 5 year 6 and do maybe an hour in each class where I would take children of maybe 4 or 5, and I would explain things to them clearer, so that they could understand and that was how I started at Bishop Mackenzie.

And then the lady that I mentioned earlier on Mrs. Row. Roberts got sick, and she couldn’t continue working there, so they asked me if I would stay on and finish the year in a year 3 classroom, which I did and then they said, Well, if you can do that, would you like to do more sort of like maternity cover, and that type of thing which I did. That was all under the British curriculum, so it was a very different way of teaching at that stage. And it was interesting, it was very similar to the type of schooling that I had had in Zimbabwe and the schooling that was- it was almost like very rote learning type of education. Where children had exams, and this is the way the exams were marked, and you had examinations, and what your what your scores were counted a lot for everything. And so children, with learning disabilities, found it very hard and very difficult, but we didn’t have an educational support class at that stage. We didn’t have educational support people at that stage. Anyway, we overcame the situation as and when we could, and children were generally given as much help as they possibly could be.

Then the children, our children had to go to secondary school and for me to be able to experience the holidays with them, and to go and see them play their sports, fixtures, and drama, all sorts of other things that they had to do at boarding school being stuck to a curriculum at Bishop Mackenzie meant that I wasn’t always available to do all of that. So we decided then that maybe I would not teach at Bishop Mackenzie, but I would do something different, and I would be available to go to the schools that they were at, which is Christian Brothers College in Pretoria. And so, for that period of their lives, then I wasn’t at Bishop Mackenzie.

So I had to do something different. I ran my own little business at that stage with a friend. And then, as and when I had to go to South Africa, I would go to South Africa and see the children doing their activities and support them as much as I could. So we then went to Mozambique, and we were in Mozambique for a couple of years. And when we came back, they said to me, ‘would I mind teaching for a term as maternity [cover]?’ But this was now under the IB system. And I thought, I have no clue, I have not done this before. So they said, No, no problem, we’ll give you support, and we’ll explain to you how it all works. And so at that stage they weren’t a  fully accredited to IB school, but they were going in that direction. So I went on a course, and I was given help by the IB PYP coordinator at Bishop Mackenzie at the primary and encouraged. And I did that- I think it was year 6 that I did a full term of maternity cover.

And so the headmaster then said to me, would I not consider coming as a contract teacher. And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve only just got back from Mozambique’. So he said, well, think about it. And I thought to myself, I thought, well, this might not be a problem. The children by that stage they were doing their own thing. And so I decided, yes, I would give it a go. So I went back to him and said, Okay, fine. So they said, Well, which year group would you like to teach? So I said, Well. what’s available? And it was year 3, year 4, year 5, and I thought, you know, middle of the road, year 4 sounds like a good plan. So, I said right fine. I would teach, therefore. So the 10 years that I taught at Bishop Mackenzie in IB I taught as at year 4 and we did all of the training programs that they- by that stage they had- were becoming fully accredited. And so you had to go and do the various courses which I did and decided that I really enjoyed IB, so much better than the British curriculum, because children were given the opportunity to think outside the box and their own capabilities and skills. They could develop at their own pace and they could express themselves in different ways. It didn’t have to be just written, it could be verbal, it could be in music, it could be in all sorts of different ways. So I thought this was a really good way of children being able to express themselves, and also have a good education at the same time. So that’s why there were 2 different areas of my teaching at Bishop Mackenzie.

I think in comparison to what the boys ended up. Our boys that went to the school, the Christian Brothers College in South Africa, I felt that they missed out on the opportunity to have that type of education. Not that they didn’t have opportunities. They had immense opportunities in their socialisation, in their sports, chess, representing their schools at cricket, at rugby, the elder one was actually at President Mandela’s inauguration. They were children that were taken from the Pretoria schools and they were trained as waiters. So at his inauguration, there were 6 children that were taken from at Christian Brothers Courage College, and they were waiters, serving people of ambassadors and leaders from all over the world that went to that inauguration. So they have exposure that other children don’t. But they could have also benefited from a different type of education system.

But the thing is, I kept telling them and explaining to them that this is how we do it at Bishop Mackenzie, and they’d go. Wow! I wish we’d had that sort of experience and had that those sorts of opportunities. So they got a bit of both. And because of that, all 3 of them definitely think outside the box.

Can you please tell me a bit about your life now. And what impact did your time at Bishop Mckenzie, or Lilongwe primary school have on your lives until today.

Right. Well, once my husband was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, he could not be exposed to malaria. and so he couldn’t take prophylactics, and he couldn’t take the cure. So we had to make the decision. We had planned to retire in Malawi, and we had everything set up to do so, because we have a cottage at the lake, and we plan to spend our time at the lake, and then come into Lilongwe and spend time at a little cottage that we were going to build in our house in Lilongwe, and all of that went up in smoke when he was diagnosed with MG. So we then had to think of, well, where could we go? What should we do? And it was a very hard decision to make. We decided that, okay, let’s change course altogether, let’s go somewhere where we don’t have to make big moves in the future. Because we’re not sure how we’re going to be able to cope medically with what’s going on.

So our son has a business in Cyprus and he said, Mom, come and try – we  were on our way to Portugal actually – come and try Cyprus and see what you think. It’s got a lot of English background, it was a former colony have a look and see whether you like it. And so we came with open minds and we fitted-in in Cyprus very well. Because it’s hot, it’s very much like Africa. There are people from Africa here. We went to church, because we’re Catholics. We went to church one Sunday, as we were trying it out and we turned around to share the peace, and we looked behind us, and there were people from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Africa, all sorts of people from all over the world, and we looked at it, and we thought, yep, this is like home. So we decided that maybe this was a good place for us to be. 

Cyprus is part of the European Union, so it has also has 25 different airlines that fly into Cyprus. So if we wanted a foot in many continents, this was a good place to be. And it was slower, it- we weren’t going to get engrossed into the rat life, the rat race again. We could slow our pace down. And so we’ve settled here fairly well. We’ve got people from very different backgrounds here. We’ve got stories to tell about Africa. They’ve got stories to tell about where they came from as well. There’s lots of people from different backgrounds, and of course you’ve got to be open minded. This is a Cypriot, Greek Cypriot community here. This is their island. And so we’ve learned to get involved in the historical background of Cyprus. And yeah, I think we fit in. So we still yearn for Africa, we always will, it’s part of our life, it’s part of who we are. But, I think we’ve got the best of both worlds, and we come back to Africa at least once a year to see Malawi, because we still have our lake cottage to come to, and we come in the winter when there’s let less chance of mosquitoes being around. And we see our son who lives in South Africa, and our grandson, who’s in South Africa as well. So that’s how we fitted into Cyprus.

Any last messages..

Well I- there’s- there is- There is, an aspect of this whole historical background. I remember being on a lot of committees and when we were doing accreditations and that type of thing, where we would talk about the alumni. And how- and I think that’s being addressed dramatically at the moment because of the 80th anniversary. But there are so many children who have gone through Bishop Mackenzie over the years. And I think our youngest child, Simon has more affiliation to Bishop Mackenzie because he was here the long-, here at Bishop Mackenzie the longest. The other 2 still have, they don’t have as much connection to Bishop Mackenzie, because they went to boarding school earlier than what he did. But he- there are still families that he is in close contact with who are still in Malawi, and so he still has all of those contacts.

But I think it’s really important for the historical background of Bishop Mackenzie not to lose contact with those alumni. I think it’s important that and I know listening to Constantini’s talk, listening to people like the Barons, the Wallaces, he Sprongs. These are people who have had families that have been there for decades, and they’ve got so much. If- They’ve married and settled back in Malawi, and their children are now going to Bishop Mackenzie. It’s wonderful that they feel that they have got heritage that they can look back on. And I think that is important, and it must be nurtured. So the idea of ​​having the museum and having all of this to tie them to the school is a big plus. So I’m very happy that they have done that, and they must continue to do that, because there’s a tendency to come in with new brooms and sweep clean and forget about the past and the past is our past that we should be proud of. You know it has made us who we are today, and I think of the children that I have taught at Bishop Mackenzie, who are now adults who have become members of Parliament, doctors, lawyers, and I think to myself I have the privilege of being part of their education.