Vienna Days: What Stayed

 Vienna Days : What Stayed

By Monalisa Butungi (Class of 2007)

Some memories arrive without ceremony; much like the talent shows that used to erupt on random Saturdays when we were still in Prep, sometime between 2002 and 2007. One minute the day was ordinary; the next, it belonged to music, laughter, and girls briefly forgetting that school life was meant to be structured.

There were dinners too, quietly held after a win; sports, academics, it hardly mattered. Victory had its own flavour. The food always tasted better then, perhaps because it came with permission to celebrate. Even now, the school anthem still makes me laugh, a reminder of how seriously we sang words we were still growing into.

Much of Vienna life unfolded in small acts of rebellion. We hid under beds, tucked behind buckets, trying not to be discovered by Madam Mirian when she was Senior Lady; firm, watchful, and unforgettable. On Saturdays, when meat was served, we carried containers to the dining hall knowing full well it wasn’t allowed. The food made its way back to the dormitories anyway, eaten slowly on beds, shared in whispers, the pleasure heightened by the risk.

Certain images refuse to fade. A large water tank with a tap still takes me back to the girls’ dormitory during the water crisis, when we rushed with buckets, anxious and laughing at the same time, hoping there would be enough water for a shower. Scarcity, it turns out, teaches cooperation better than rules ever could.

Not all memories are gentle. There was the strike; loud, confusing strike and the punishment that followed. I was caned by Red Top while doing nothing at all, a moment that remains unresolved, a lesson in authority and unfairness that lingered longer than the pain itself.

And then there were the Saturday dances. Reggaeton filled the hall, bodies moving freely, friendships deepening on the dance floor. Those evenings felt expansive, as though the world was briefly larger than school walls.

Looking back now, I see how these moments shaped me quietly. They made me more relaxed, more humble, less rigid in my expectations of people and life. Vienna did not announce when it was shaping us. It did so in laughter, in hiding places, in shared meals, in music, and even in moments of injustice.

These were not just school memories. They were early lessons in living and in remembering.