The picture above is a screen-print of Google Earth
The location can be found when you enter the following coordinates in the search window of Google Earth: 8°55'28"S 33°24'46"E
Mbeya School has haunted me throughout my whole life
I remember once ever having an areal fotograph of the place
I searched for it often but could never find it back between my relics of way back then
I even searched the internet but without succes
Google Earth made its appearance but still Mbeya School eluded me
Some time ago I decided to create a site and dedicate it to Mbeya as a way to write away the intricate mix of memories and emotions that affected my life ever since my youth
Suddenly, as were it out of the blue I was astounded to find out that at last there were clear sattelite images of Mbeya School and it’s surroundings
For me this was writing on the wall
In a sense it was as if Mbeya at last emerged from the murky shadows of the past
It was time to deal with a period that burdoned me for the last fifty years
Livingstone, Wellington, Stanley and Burton had explored Dark Afrika
Now I would reveal the dark secrets that had caused so much pain and sorrow
It was time to open the closet that was stocked with children wthout a youth
This site is my personal statement and in a sense my finally coming out of the closet
I have struggled most of my life with the aftermath of my days at Mbeya
I have very few fond memories of Mbeya and I believe I may bluntly state that the Boarding System at Mbeya School crushed my personality during a critical phase of development causing it to whilt before it could develop naturally and blossom as it was once intended to
My feelings towards Mbeya are subjective and purely personal
I frequently quote a book calles THE MAKING OF THEM by an author called NICK DUFFEL who together with his wife have grounded an institute dedicated to helping BOARDING SCHOOL SURVIVORS
To learn more about their work please click on the link below
http://www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk/
I chose to make my personal story public because I have suffered lifelong emotional damage due to being a boarder there and I have learnt that I am certainly not alone in this respect
There are more of us who became lost when a heartless and rigid system stole our youth
I refer to us as The Lost Tribe
BUT
As far as I am concerned The Lost Tribe will be lost no more
It is my intention to dedicate this site to us and enable us to get in touch with each other and share our pain and sorrow
I am convinced that a number of us have spent considerable time in grieving and mourning a lost childhood
It is time to reclaim that childhood and cherish our personal child within that has protected the escence of the beautifull person we were orginally meant to be
That very child has survived all these years, waiting for us to come and fetch it from the impenetrable darkness of a place deep within where we dread to go
It is there that pain and sorrow await us
But it is that very pain and sorrow we must go through to become whole once again
It is a sacred healing room within ourselves and once we have given our sorrow the opportunity to flow away, simple, non demanding love is what will remain
It was that love we hid so far away succesfully to protect ourselves from being hurt deeply when we had no other options to protect ourselves in the first place
Much too late came the awareness that we hidden it too well and were not able to find it back anymore
We had become dependant on a means of surviving that was totally detached from our emotions
We were Robots, mimicing society but never truly fitting in
There is one means of returning to our true selves
It is through the forbidding portal behind which we will be immersed in the pain and grief of a lifetime
I have been there, I have seen it all and I have emerged stronger than ever
I have given my inner child a very important place in life and in return I have recieved a life full of possibillities and opportunities to be my true self for the rest of my life
I am more and more becoming the manchild I was meant to be at birth
My heart let go of fear and slowly filled up with love
First of myself and after that it kept on growing and expanding
It is that love that will heal us all and enable us to embrace life and ourselves once again
That is the power of such love.....
Sil Frederik Schutze