Graduation

A few weeks ago, our school held a graduation day on the Saturday we got home from Kilimanjaro. Mary asked me to arrive a little early to help organize all the kids. The Kindergarten-2 class (the children one level older than my class) and the 8th graders were graduating but all 300 or so children were in attendance to perform and celebrate.

Since graduation started at 9, M and I arrived at 8:45. We were greeted by my entire class rushing at us since they hadn’t seen us for 2 weeks (they know M since he’s stopped by several times). They crowded around for hugs and I was very happy to see them all. They looked so cute in their uniforms and the girls were allowed to wear their hair in braids (they call them “rastas”) for graduation so they were all eager to show me their new hairstyles; school rules require the girls to wear their hair braided to their heads except for graduation (they call this “lines”).

Unfortunately, children in several other classes rushed over as well including some children in the primary classes (1st grade and higher) who have likely never seen either M or me. I say “unfortunately” because Kenyan children have the habit of rushing up to any mzungu they see in an effort to get sweets, money, etc. that these visitors often hand out. For obvious reasons, this is dangerous and something I really try to discourage in children that we don’t know.

All of the children were present and waiting for the parents to arrive. The school bus picked them up as on a normal school morning to ensure their arrival. At 9 AM, M was the only non-teacher present and actually several teachers had not yet arrived. He took a seat under the tent while I helped Mary prepare the table for the guests of honor. At 10 AM, only a few parents were present and the kids were starting to get hot and dirty; it simply wasn’t possible to keep them from running around since this entire event was taking place on the school field. At 10:30, there were about 30 parents present so they decided to start. Through the day, attendance would climb to several hundred parents and visitors with the majority arriving after 11 AM.

Each class had prepared several songs, dances, skits, or poems so the presentation began. Our kids were to go 3rd or 4th in the presentation so we lined them up to go “on-stage” but then we got the call that we were waiting for the guest of honor before our kids could go. So now we had 20 or so 3 and 4-year olds lined up in 95 degrees and we were supposed to keep them that way for about 45 minutes. Things quickly deteriorated as the kids got very overheated so we moved them into the shade. Some of our youngest soon dissolved into tears including Timo; it was clear that everyone needed a nap:



Eventually at 11:30, the guest of honor arrived and we began to re-do the portion of the program that been going on since 10:30. Eventually around 12:30, it was our turn. Mary and Teacher Esther had planned 3 songs for our group when we started rehearsing months ago. One was a Kenyan song (remember money politics?) and they asked me and Katherine, a German volunteer who showed up 4 weeks after I did, to each teach the children a song.

At first I was stumped for a song to teach the kids. Katherine could pick any German song but after a few weeks, it became clear that the kids knew most American/English nursery songs. They sing “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and “London Bridge” every few weeks. I asked Mary if she thought they had any frame of reference for “London Bridge” and she said no, not at all. I asked why they didn’t sing African nursery rhymes and she said that she didn’t know any. She knew traditional Kikuyu stories but that with so many tribes in Kenya, they just learned the old British nursery rhymes in school because that’s what they’d always done.

I got the idea to teach them an African song when I heard the ringtone on Mary’s phone: the World Cup theme song includes a chorus in Zulu as a tribute to host South Africa. I would teach them Siyahamba; a mzungu teaching Kenyans a Zulu song, makes good sense. I was taught this song in Sunday school when I was little and M’s family also grew up singing it in their local music groups. Mary was vaguely familiar with it so we decided that we would sing it in English, Swahili, and Zulu:

English: We are marching in the light of God

Swahili: Twatembea kwenye mwangaza

Zulu: Siyahamba ekukhanyen kwenkos

I taught them the song in the third week and the kids love it because we sing it the 3 ways and then substitute other action words (dancing, jumping, clapping, praying) for marching and then can be silly and act it out.

So, we decided that the kids would march in to that song and then sing the Swahili and German songs as their “presentation”. Below is the result that M captured on film:



After our group went, there was another 2-3 hours of presentations before any speeches; above is the dance team performing a traditional Luo dance. It was now 2:30 PM and graduation was supposed to be from 9-12. The keynote speaker stood up and began talking about fiscal planning and creating vision statements for the schools goals. Mary later explained that Kenyan graduation speeches were intended for the parents and not the graduates. That made sense since I’m pretty sure it was over the head of the graduating Kindergarten children as well as most of the 8th graders. Since it was pretty informal, we eventually headed out to get a much needed cold beverage but apparently things wrapped up around 4:30. Our kids did great and I think it was a pretty strong performance considering the delays. I miss the kids and Mary and I am looking forward to school re-opening in January.