A fairy tale come true
By Andrew Teyie

When my memoirs are written, my association with Massey College in the University of Toronto will be more than just a footnote.

Like a fairy tale, it's a story of how I was paid to study and was fed, accommodated, rubbed shoulders with who-is-who and transported half the world in search of knowledge.

It starts with when Administrator Anna Luengo picked me from Toronto's Lester Pearson Airport after close to 21 hours travel, summer was then in its dying stages. Although she talked about a prolonged summer, I felt like being tossed into the deep freeze of a refrigerator.

On arrival, she showed me around the college and then handed me the Keys to my room, which basically meant that I was on my own. It was like being thrown into the deep end and asked to wade to shallow waters.

I was entranced by Massey College. I found the quadrangle particularly amazing, especially in the morning when weak summer sun rays would sift through the trees already beckoning the fall season to bring out the crimson. And for days, I would sit in the quad facing the fishpond and the bell tower. I would gaze at the beauty that is the quad for hours.

The first month at Massey was toughest. Apart from the culture shock, I was home sick. I missed everything Kenyan. I missed my family, especially my daughter, Hani Ndiika, who was eight months when I left in September. I missed the Kenyan food, the scorching African sun that I had taken for granted. I missed my friends.

Having been born and bred in fast paced city of Nairobi, I found Toronto slow. I found myself longing for newsroom deadlines. The absence of newsroom deadlines, which I had gotten used to, slowed me down. I discovered that I had too much time, which I channeled into studying.

Despite the culture shock, weather acclimatization and sense of dislocation, I was expected to adopt very fast. I was attending classes, meeting different people and attending functions. There were days when it wore me down.

However, I marveled at how dinners were a ritual and yet special at Massey College. We would all dress into our black academic gowns complete with rosette to dine in Ondaatje hall, where the Don of Hall would recite grace in Latin. From afar we resembled penguins. However, It was always a sight to behold. I settled very quickly at Massey and adjusted to the culture.

Soon, we were planning for the Montreal trip, then Mexico in the New Year.

However, there was another worry. Winter was fast approaching. I became a weather watcher. Monitoring temperatures as they dropped to sub zero daily. It is difficult to forget the winter, which brought with it more than three blizzards to Toronto. One of the winter storms disrupted my Christmas trip to Nairobi. On the day of my travel, over 300 scheduled flights were cancelled due to bad weather. Mine was one of them. It later took me 48 hours to reach Nairobi, tired, bored and yet excited to see my family after four months absence.

On arrival, I walked straight in chaos that rocked Kenya, threatening to tear apart the country that had enjoyed peace for over 40 years. I however, I managed to return to Toronto to continue with my studies despite the chaos in Nairobi. This was after soul searching on whether it was safe to leave them in such an environment. It was a trying period as the country convulsed into chaos.

Juggling between learning, checking on my family, colleagues and friends in Nairobi drained me at the end of the day. It was a heavy load. A heavy load that was shared by the Massey community. Master Fraser, Elizabeth MacCallum and Anna were helpful. So were journalists, Jeff Brown, Liane Faulder and Shree lee-Olson. Time and again, they would seek me out to find out what was happening to my family and the country as a whole. And as a journalist, I sometimes felt like missing in action.

I was invited to give lectures in Toronto on state of affairs in Kenya. I gave a breakfast presentation at U of T department of law and at Massey College. I participated in a fundraiser for Internally Displaced People, where I was called to recount my experience as a journalist and put into perspective what was happening.

As my academic year comes to an end, I look back with nostalgia. It has been a whirlwind year and yet a splendid year thanks to the family of Gordon Fisher, Massey College, U of T and Commonwealth Press Union (CPU).

The year has opened my eyes to a new world of issues, ideas and traditions. Where else would you be paid to study and tour the world at the same time! My time at Massey College has burst my little bubble that the world I lived in Nairobi, Kenya was the best. During the eight months, I made contacts in the world of academia, business, media, art, civic, religious groups, charitable organizations name it and enhanced my intellectual abilities to boot. These are very precious things in my world of journalism that no one can take away from you.

When not in seminars, I was in class concentrating on my studies. I took International Relations, Global Networks, Peace and Conflict studies in Department of political science, Rhetoric and Media. I also managed to study Anthropology of religion, which I enjoyed. Here, I learnt that witchcraft was practiced as a form of religion among African tribes. It reminded me of the night runners of Western Kenya.

The seminars were the most engaging sessions. Here, I had the opportunity of meeting accomplished professors, politicians, journalists, religious leaders, trade unionists and artists. During the sessions, which are off record, you get up close with them; delving deeper into their innermost thought.

Professor Ted Chamberlain, Toronto Star former publisher John Honderich, and former UN special envoy on HIV/ AIDs Stephen Lewis particularly fascinated me. Professor Chamberlain, who teaches at U of T reconstructs lost languages in Africa while Stephen Lewis has dedicated himself to fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Life at Massey College, U of T was fascinating. At the foyer, between the upper, Robertson Davies lower libraries, Junior Common room(JCR) and the Ondaantje hall, there are inspirational words inscribed on the wall:

"This House was built by Massey Corporation in 1962. It is the intention of the body of the founders to bring into college a body of graduates limited in number but of high promise in scholarship and qualified to make of worth the fellowship to which they belong. It is the founders prayers that through the fullness of its corporate life and efforts of its members, the college will nourish learning and serve the public good".

The words are strategically placed. Whichever way you look, you will not fail to notice them - Inspiring hope and driving this community of achievers. It happens that they all meet here at some point in their lifetime. The best there ever was in sciences and Arts.

They are either surgeons, robotic engineers, computer scientists, historians, lawyers , journalists, nobel prize winners, name it. Here, the past fuses with the future. Massey college is a melting pot of intellectuals; where quadrangular's, senior fellows would time and again meet junior fellow and seize each other. They would meet at dinner oiled by free wine provided by the seniors. Intellectual discourses would start in Ondaantje hall before spilling over to Junior Common Room (JCR) and sometimes to the Quadrangle in the night as junior fellows filtered away into their rooms.

One is humbled by the brilliance of these young men and women, whose determination is to change the world. They bubble with energy and are confident of the future. They are well polished and sophisticated, courtesy of Master Fraser, who ensures the 'big brains' are in sync with the traditions that have defined Massey college over the years. They eat together, play games together, and even fall in love with each other.

When they are not engaged in studies, you will find them curving pumpkins, playing murder game, dancing away the winter at the winter ball or even playing mini golf at massey college's underground complex tunnels and rooms.

For other Fellows’ stories, click here.