Kait's Travels: The Grad Ceremony on African Time

"Haina haraka Afrika"

“There is no hurry in Africa”

Last year, Danielle and I spent one of our first days in Tanzania sitting in the blazing hot African sun waiting to watch Saumu’s year-end assembly and the school graduation ceremony. This whole ordeal was set up at the school in front of some classrooms, with tents set up to provide some shade, and lots of decorations randomly stuck about to add to the festivities. Last year we were told to arrive early, and ended up burning up in the sun waiting for it to start, then we were stuck at the school until dark while the children performed and the teachers blathered on about how great their school is. The headmaster even invited Danielle and I to come up on stage as “distinguished guests” while she said who-knows-what about us in Kiswahili. I expected nothing but ridiculousness this year, and Sunday’s graduation ceremony chaos exceeded my expectations, and then some.

Days before the graduation ceremony was scheduled to occur, I asked several teachers, including the school manager/headmaster, when the activities would begin. I didn’t want to screw things up like last year. The first teacher told me 8am. The second teacher told me 10am. The school headmaster told me she did not know. The matron of the girls’ dormitory told me to come to the school at 1pm. I opted to plan for the latest start time, remembering how last year played out.

After a lovely relaxing morning reading my book and listening to some music on my balcony and a quick trip to the internet cafe, I called my usually very punctual taxi driver at 12:40. He told me he would be there “baadaya dakika kumi” – after 10 minutes. No big deal. Baadaya dakika arobaini – 40 minutes – he showed up with sincere apologies. Still not too concerned. We arrived at Saumu’s school at about 1:30 and there were maybe half a dozen souls in sight. A couple young students and one teacher sat on the bench under the tree. No stage, no parents, no tent, no Saumu, no big speakers, nothing there. I ducked into the girls dormitory which was empty, and checked the office door, which was closed. Now I was concerned that I would miss it. The teacher in the shade asked if we were here for the graduation ceremony and we said we were. “Go Tanga school” he replied. Kapelo (taxi driver) clarified details with this guy in quick Swahili and I got back in the taxi and was taken to some other random school – in fact, the first secondary school ever built in Tanzania – Tanga Secondary school. Kapelo led me over to a big covered open-air auditorium with parents and kids everywhere and told me to call him later. Apparently all those nice teachers neglected to tell me that the ordeal was at a totally different and unrelated venue.

Saumu’s English teacher recognized me as the “Mama of Saumu” and told me that the program would start at 2pm (it was now about 1:45). He took me to the front of the seating area and set me up with a chair where I could get some good photos (which didn’t work out anyways due to crappy lighting). The whole seating area and stage was under cover and in the shade! No blazing sun! The rafters even had fans, and lights rigged into them! There was another mzungu girl there too, whom I had met a few days earlier, and she set up camp next to me. Here for 4 months from Holland, Julia is a volunteer kindergarten teacher at the school and she was placed there through TeV – the same local NGO that I worked with in 2008. After she had organized her students backstage in preparation for their performance, she took a seat next to me and we chatted for quite some time about her experience at the school, with TeV and life in Tanga. Meanwhile, some kind of food was being served at the back of the auditorium, and several hundred people (not sure if they all had anything to do with the school) lined up to get a plate. They waited for everyone to eat. At 3:35pm, with no food left (but still a massive lineup), someone finally took to the microphone and shouted Kiswahili prayers over some very loud speakers. Random people with crappy cell phone cameras stood in front of the stage trying to take photos, blocking the view of the rest of us. One “professional” photographer stood right in front of Julia and I, but he took few photos. A few of the older classes performed; One group of Grade 6 students demonstrated Tae Kwon Do (kinda strange to find in Tanzania?) with ridiculous sound effects playing in the background, another group performed traditional dancing with drums (pretty cool, actually), the grade 7 grads put on a skit about a rich man dying, and one group of tiny primary-aged kids screamed incomprehensible things about loving school into the microphone at extremely high decibel levels... and then the electricity went out.

There was a long pause and everyone grew restless while the teachers tried to decide who would perform next. After about 15 minutes, another group of older students tried to perform, but could not be heard over the now bored and restless audience. Then the electricity came back on, so they gave the kids a microphone and they continued whatever it was they were trying to do. Then they decided to skip a bunch of acts, and paused again. Then the electricity went out, again. Saumu was standing in the wings smiling at me – I think even she knew it was ridiculous. Skipping most of the performances, the Headmaster began to call up the Grade 7 grads and give them their diplomas. People in the audience started getting up and leaving, taking their kids with them. While the Headmaster struggled to continue amongst the chaos, a girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You. The time is over. Now you can go.” But it wasn’t over, and the school staff tried to continue the Graduation procedures for those students leaving the school, unsuccessfully speaking over everyone else as they shuffled chairs around and ignored the whole thing. It was 5:30pm and they had ran out of time, apparently. Saumu came and sat with me. She didn’t get to perform the poem or songs that she had gone back to school to rehearse the previous day. Julia’s kindergarteners didn’t get to perform the English songs she spent 3 months teaching them.

So, I waited to say my goodbyes and pleasantries to the teachers I know there, and we left just before dark. In comparison to last year’s long and drawn out performance, this year’s graduation ceremony was a disappointing disaster.