Snapshot memoirs from a Nun's Life

She is born, named Teresa - this pretty, blonde haired, blue eyed baby is there for me. After only having brothers I claim her as mine. The year is 1934.

When she is in her fourth year, our adored father dies and leaves us. We are all very sad.

I am in my eleventh year in boarding school in Murree in the foothills of the Himalayas. Our school is a real beauty spot, with pine forests and large coniferous trees surrounding the school, with monkeys, leopards and birds that live in the forests. The smell of pines mixed with exotic, mountain flowers add to this profusion of beauty and perfume. The school is safely fenced off, so the animals and the children are kept well apart. But there is no Teresa here.

It is now the month of March 1938 and the ground is covered in soft and fluffy snow, about three to four feet deep. The heavy snowfall in the winter months is the norm. The drive and pathway is cleared.

Because of my father’s sudden death, my mother has to work and so Teresa and my young brother, Richard, are sent to the nursery in my school as boarders on a temporary basis. I am overjoyed.

School days are good times for us. Teresa grows into a lovely little girl but the day arrives when Mum remarries and she and Richard leave for home in Rawalpindi, very near the present capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad.

Teresa and I are very close. She follows me everywhere and copies all I do. She is, however, influenced by a Catholic lady who lives near us. Teresa is encouraged at the tender age of seven to go to the Catholic Church with her. Our family, except my step father, are Anglican. Teresa fusses until she is allowed to convert to Catholicism and she is instrumental in converting Richard and my mother too. My older brother and I remain staunch Anglicans.

As a teenager Teresa is a pupil in a Convent boarding school. Our schools are in the same town. Later my brother (17) and I (19) also convert to Catholicism with her influence and that of the man I eventually married. This, however, is not my story - it is Teresa’s.

On leaving school she announces to the family that she intends to become a teaching nun. We are astounded and feel she is deserting us.

Teresa is beautiful. Her baby blonde hair is now a rich dark/auburn brown and her eyes reflect the colour she wears, sometime blue, sometimes green and at other times blue-grey. It is a shame that all this beauty will be hidden by a veil and a nun’s habit.

She obtains her BA and B-ED degrees and is soon an exceptionally good teaching nun. In time she becomes a Reverend Mother.

She lives in a sheltered environment and I live in the real world. She is temperate and mild in disposition. I am wild and passionate with a volatile disposition. Though we are not at all alike we are close and agree to disagree on most points. We are like close parallel lines that run along side each other, staying ever close but never meeting.

Eventually Teresa is given a village appointment. She is an excellent organiser; practical and pragmatic. She is artistic and architectural, hence her appointment to supervise the building of a school and a church in Mariakhel, a village in the Thal desert of Pakistan, and to run the school as Principal. This is no mean task and the fact that she is chosen to accomplish it amazes me. My little sister, who was my shadow, has now overshadowed me - in a different aspect of life no doubt.

In a couple of years her desert blooms. A school is built with housing for nuns and guests and classrooms for the children she hopes will come. A church with accommodation for the clergy is erected. The project is modern and a total marvel. There are orchards of orange, lemon, apricot, pumlo and other fruit trees. A large vegetable garden produces an abundance of crops and exotic flower gardens enhance the buildings. Meat is supplied by the village farmers and their hunter priest.

Even though the area is a desert the soil is arable. Just below the surface there is water, which is obtained through the drilling of tube wells. The water is pure and cold. The orchards and gardens are watered by outside pumps and inside the building plumbing supplies running water and water closets.

The village people, Muslims mostly, are wary of the religious and the convent. Before long, however, they are captivated by Teresa’s and the other nuns’ outgoing sweetness and kindness to them. Eventually the school is full of students, not necessarily Catholic though some do convert. Education is the primary goal and this is entirely successful.

With all this talent, Teresa is naïve. One day a wild boar attacked two villagers and killed one. It had been wounded by a hunter’s bullet and was out for revenge against mankind.

Teresa is in her vegetable garden when this wild boar stands on the opposite side to her, menacing, panting, grunting, frothing at the mouth and bleeding. Teresa looks at the boar
‘Poor little piggy – who has hurt you?’
She has a soft, soothing voice. With this she reaches out her hand with the green cabbage to this infuriated wild beast.

‘Piggy’ stood there looking at her in seeming amazement. Here is someone who is not threatening him, nor firing a gun at him and offering him green cabbage to eat. He must truly be confused. Teresa is in grave danger but she is totally oblivious to it, all she wants is to comfort and console this wounded animal. It stands there immobile, looking at her and its pants and grunts gradually subside; it begins to relax when suddenly the Catholic priest (the hunter), the village headman and his henchman arrive with their guns, followed by many others with latis (large sticks) and they shoot the boar. Teresa is furious.
‘How dare you shoot this poor pig in my garden?’ She rants at them as they try to explain the necessity to destroy him and also to placate her wrath.

When the pig is presented to the school and the priest as a gift, Teresa refuses to even look at the succulent dish that is prepared and that all enjoy. The aromatic smell permeates the air but she thinks it a sacrilege.

On another occasion a fete is held in the village. The younger nuns obtain what they think are good value balloons from a shopkeeper.

The ‘balloons’ are blown up and are being sold at the fete when the priest notices them and with horror talks to Teresa. The simple village children are buying balloons and they are all over the grounds. Parents and others are giggling. Teresa is extremely embarrassed when she has to tell her nuns that they are selling condoms! There is consternation and confusion as all the balloons have to be burst and money refunded to bring normality back to the village fete.
This then is the life my sister chooses. Cloistered and dull? I do not think so. Fulfilling and interesting? Yes, indeed.

Helen Renaux