Graduation day

One of Miriam's protegees got his degree from the University of Sierra Leone on Saturday. As Miriam is up country, he invited me to go and watch, along with others.

We left at 5.45 am to make sure we could park, although it it only about 4 miles away and went the long way round to pick up his friend who was also getting his degree. Mohamed comes from upcountry and has no family so he has lived for years with a foster family and they came as well.

They finally let us in the stadium where it was all being held about 8 am and I was surprised to find that my ticket was for VIP's so I got a seat near the front, along with another teacher from the school and his foster mother, who speaks no English. I sat right on the central aisle so I could see everything. There were 1200 graduates and they started coming in to take their places so the sound of the police band playing carols and other Christmas songs such as jingle bells. I am having real difficulty in reconciling the temperature and Christmas, even though we all break up at the end of this week and exams are in full swing.

Back to the great occasion. After all the graduands had taken their seats, we waited and then the more minor academics processed in. Then the vice president arrived and took his seat and finally the rest of the university officials processed in with the mace and finally the President of Sierra Leone himself as the University Chancellor.
He was surrounded by men in sunglasses, security men look the same the world over. the initial speeches lasted an hour, then each group of graduands was presented and every one came up in a line and shook hand with the president. This took hours and the sun broke through about mid-day and there wasn't a breath of air. Everyone started to cook but no-one could move, it would have been very disrespectful to the president. then there was an honorary graduate and more speeches. I was plastering on sun cream and it seems to have worked. I got a nice tan but did not burn, although the top of my feet got rather red. It finally finished at 2.30, I had been sitting in the sun for six and a half hours.

We pushed our way out and met up at the car. There were some nice moments when groups that were apparently clubs lifted their graduates high on their shoulders and went through the streets doing that slow run you see Africans do on the TV, singing.
The trip home was an adventure as well. Freetown is as bad as London in rush hour so we headed off up the hills. It is a city built on hills with valleys between so the tarmacked roads go so far, then just run out and then it gets to be very bumpy. Our local farm tracks are skating rinks compared to foot deep ruts and piles of rocks. Just when you get down and think it is all over, up the car goes again.
When we finally got back to school, I had been out exactly 12 hours but it gave me a glimpse of another SL that is trying to get back to the normality it had before the civil war. Everyone was in their best clothes, just like in England but some of these graduates had overcome massive difficulties and their families had sacrificed so much to get them there. The costumes are lovely but that had better be another blog. Pat