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By Root 1439 0

doctors, teachers, representatives of the Economic Commission for Africa, WHO, UNESCO, Red Cross, UNICEF, and especially the newly forming OAU—the Organization of African Unity. The Emperor had offered the gift of Africa Hall, a stunning building, to the fledging OAU, a cunning move that would bring the organization's headquarters to Addis Ababa and already was boosting business for everyone from the bar girls to the Fiat, Peugeot, and Mercedes importers. The OAU kids could have gone to the Lycée Gebremariam, an imposing building that loomed over the steepest part of Churchill Road. But the envoys from the Francophone countries—Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritius, and Madagascar— had an eye to the future, and so the cars with the Corps Diplomatiques plates carried les enfants past the lycée to Loomis Town & Country. For completeness, I must mention St. Joseph's, where, according to Matron, the Jesuits, those foot soldiers of Christ, believed in God and the Rod. But St. Joseph's was boys only, which ruled it out for us because of Genet.

Why not the rough-and-tumble of the government schools? If we'd gone there we might have been the only non-native children, and we would have been in a minority of kids with more than one pair of shoes and a home with running water and indoor plumbing. Hema and Ghosh felt their only choice was to send us to Loomis Town & Country, which was run by British expats.

Our teachers at LT&C had their A levels and the odd teaching certificate. It is astonishing how a black crepe robe worn over a coat or a blouse gives a Cockney punter or a Covent Garden flower girl the gravitas of an Oxford don. Accent be damned in Africa, as long as it's foreign and you have the right skin color.

Ritual. That was the balm to soothe the parents’ disquiet about what they were getting for their money at LT&C. Gymkhana, Track and Field Day, the School Carnival, the Christmas Pageant, the School Play, Guy Fawkes Night, Founder's Day, and Graduation—we carried so many mimeographed notices home that they made Hema's head spin. We were assigned to Monday House, or Tuesday House, or Wednesday House, each with its colors, teams, and house masters. On Track and Field Day we competed for the glory of our house and for the Loomis Cup. Every morning in Assembly Hall, Mr. Loomis led us in Assembly Prayer, then a reading from the Revised Standard Version, and then we belted out the hymn from the blue hymnal while one teacher or another banged out the chords on the assembly piano.

I am convinced that one can buy in Harrods of London a kit that allows an enterprising Englishman to create a British school anywhere in the third world. It comes with black robes, preprinted report cards for Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter terms, as well as hymnals, Prefect Badges, and a syllabus. Assembly required.

Unfortunately, the LT&C students’ pass rates for the General Certificate of Education O levels were terrible when compared with the free government schools. There the Indian teachers were all degree holders whom the Emperor hired from the Christian state of Kerala, the place Sister Mary Joseph Praise hailed from. Ask an Ethiopian abroad if perchance they learned mathematics or physics from a teacher named Kurien, Koshy Thomas, George, Varugese, Ninan, Mathews, Jacob, Judas, Chandy Eapen, Pathros, or Paulos, and the odds are their eyes will light up. These teachers were brought up in the Orthodox ritual which St. Thomas carried to south India. But in their professional roles, the only ritual they cared about was engraving the multiplication and periodic tables as well as Newton's laws into the brains of their Ethio pian pupils, who were uniformly smart and who had a great aptitude for arithmetic.

My class teacher, Mrs. Garretty called Hema and Ghosh at the end of a day when I stayed home from school with a fever. She knew us as the adorable Stone twins, those darling, dark-haired, light-eyed boys who dressed alike, who happily sang, ran, drew, jumped, clapped, and chattered to excess in her class. The day I stayed home,