Farewell Again

For some reason I thought this week was going to be uneventful and trouble free. It turns out that I was horribly mistaken. It is the last week of school and grades are due and it seems many administrative tasks were put off until the last moment. I have been working pretty late the past few days helping on getting the reports done and printed correctly. Tomorrow is the final day and it seems like everything should be done on time which will be a relief.

In the midst of all those grades and reports, the other school I work in had its farewell/graduation/circle-of-learners party yesterday. I feel like the last week of a school is a much better time to have this party than before the exams (like the other school did). Although I felt a little frustrated that the school was putting off all the things that needed to be done for yet another day, the party was a good time. As you might imagine, it was very similar to the other farewell in most respects: many speeches, songs, and dancing.

I told you that you would see the female traditional dancing soon enough!

The biggest difference was the graduation of the grade R learners entering into grade 1. I would say more time was devoted to the grade R than the grade 6 graduation. A fellow peace corps volunteer saw this same event recently. There was at least an hour devoted to them coming out and marching around in their finery and then another hour for them to pose in their cap and gowns. It was a little bizarre for me. The kids seemed to have very little idea as to what was happening. They were just walking around as orders were barked at them. It was cute enough but I felt like I had enough of it pretty early on. Perhaps I am a little biased towards the grade 6 and feel like they were an afterthought to the whole party. "Yeah, yeah good job grade 6, you spent 6 years here and now you are going to middle school. Let's see more of the small children in adult clothing!"

Those ties are pretty great. Should look into getting one of those.

I mean how hard is it to graduate from grade R anyway? You learn numbers and letters for a couple hours then play and eat and go home early. Although the grade 6 learners here are not exactly working themselves to the bone, their days are not as easy as all that. I'm not saying get rid of the whole grade R affair-- I know I did something similar when I was that young and that parents enjoy this sort of thing-- I just wish there was a little more for the grade 6 is all. I call for graduation parity, I demand cap and gown equality! Am I coming off as a curmudgeon on this one? This is probably one of those times where I am the only person with a gripe about the situation and my opinion really doesn't matter at all. If any of the grade 6 learners felt the same way, they didn't show it. I think they were happy enough just to be moving on.

I was trying to get a picture of the kid in the way back because he had a sweet mohawk but as you can see the photo was stormed and he barely made it into the frame.