Vienna Days: After Prep, Before Sleep

 Vienna Days: After Prep, Before Sleep

By Matsiko Sandra (Class of 2004)

Some traditions at Vienna were never written down, which is perhaps why they survived. The jabber dance was one of them. It happened after prep, in the dorm, when the day’s discipline loosened its grip. Forks and spoons rebranded as tools became instruments, striking bedposts in a rhythm that belonged entirely to us. One person led the beat. Others danced. What it offered, more than anything, was release.

On one such night, the sound grew too confident, too loud to pass unnoticed. Madam Florence appeared at the door. By the time it opened, the ringleader was already in bed, still, convincing. The dorm was punished collectively, bathrooms scrubbed, order restored except for her. Justice, like memory, was selective.

Vienna was also a place of quiet ingenuity, practiced by only a few. There was the friend who knew how to enter the dorm through the louvers when gates were no longer an option. A few panels were removed. Someone posted outside to replace them. The system worked because it was shared sparingly, like any good secret.

There are references that still make old girls and old boys smile without explanation. “Five O” is one of them. It doesn’t need elaboration. Recognition is enough.

And when stories begin to thin, memory settles on objects. The wooden bank beds;unyielding, unmistakable are still there. A niece sleeps in them now. Proof that while students come and go, Vienna has a way of staying put.

Rooted in legacy, shaping tomorrow; sometimes through noise, small conspiracies, and the urgent need to feel free.