Bosnian student bids his Malaysian teacher goodbye

IT was with great sadness that I read a Facebook post by MAZ International School informing everyone that my former Mathematics teacher Mr Francis Santa Maria, had passed away in April.

My two older brothers and I were his students in the 1990s at the school. Ever since we returned to our home country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we have often thought of him.

Mr Francis was a strict teacher. Students were, no doubt, afraid of him in class. The scariest moments were when in utter silence, we would all pray and hope to not get called out to the front to answer a Math equation. However, he made it his priority for students to learn to use their logic rather than merely learning Math. This is probably why many of us remember him even after 20 years.

Looking back now, he had a very interesting way of narrating and commenting. Using the colonial British English, he would shout, “Nonsense!” or “This is utter rubbish!” when a student started solving a Math problem wrongly or when we made mischief. He would blow his whistle and point while calling your name.

He knew and remembered each and every one of us, which was fascinating.

I remember that he loved Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the 1990s and news about the war was still fresh. One day in 2000, he called out my name in the school backyard during recess with his high-pitched voice. This would usually mean that one did something wrong and what followed would be detention or punishment.

When I came up to him, he simply said: “Congratulations, Arkan is dead.” He was referring to the notorious war criminal Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, commander of the “Tigers” unit which participated in genocidal massacres throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Once when one of my classmates said that he could not solve a Math problem because he was scared, Mr Francis replied, “You don’t know what it means to be scared” and proceeded to tell a story of him and his friend during the Second World War when Japan occupied Malaya.

Mr Francis and his friend who were of Portugese descent, were riding their bicycles when they came across two Japanese soldiers. The rule at that time, he said, was to get off your bicycle and stand still while the soldiers passed by.

Mr Francis did that while his friend stopped the bicycle but did not get off. The Japanese soldier took out his sword and slashed him dead. “That’s being scared!” he ended his story.

Discipline, hard work and responsibility are the life lessons he taught his students, and I believe each and every one of us – even in far-away Sarajevo – cherish him for that.