Graduation

The atmosphere at Sega on Graduation morning was full of excitement. Everywhere we looked there were pre-formals, soon to be form-ones, running around in their scrubbed clean uniforms and polished shoes, with huge smiles on their faces. The new canteen was decorated beautifully, in maroon and white, the colors of the pre-formal’s uniforms. We gathered with the pre-formals in their classroom, and presented them with the graduation gift we had been working on with Fran. We had made three big posters that said “Congratulations, Graduation 2010” and decorated them with pictures of the girls and drawings. The girls are very enthusiastic about photos, so they had a blast searching the posters to find their faces and the faces of their friends. As the guests began to arrive the excitement mounted. The guest of honor, a generous patron of the school, arrived dressed in a beautiful orange and gold kitenge dress fit for a queen. The graduation ceremony was lovely, and Polly introduced special guests from Teach a Man to Fish, a company who support self-sustaining schools like SEGA. This was followed by speeches from Salome, the headmistress, the guest of honor, some of the graduating students, a parent representative, and the chair of Nurturing Minds, Clark. The Form-one girls performed beautiful dances to traditional African drumming and to popular bongo flava songs. Of course, the butt-shaking was included! We were thrilled to see that in one of their dances they incorporated both the Macarena, which we had taught them, and a special dance move that came from the movie Seventeen Again, which we had shown them! In the pre-formal’s performance, one of the girls, Rose, led the chorus with her high, beautiful voice, and the rest of the students echoed her. We had no idea she had such an incredible voice – just one of the hidden talents so many of the girls have! The parents were all very enthusiastic, and during the performances they ululated loudly, and some even went up on stage and started dancing in between the rows of performing girls! When it was time for the non-formals to get their graduation certificates, they were called up one by one to the head table. It is a tradition that after the girls get their certificates their families come up and place a taji (sort of like a colorful Hawaiian lei) around their necks, and often give them gifts of soda and sweets. After the ceremony there was a delicious catered lunch, with bottles of Sprite and Coke for everyone! The girls especially seemed to enjoy the chicken dish, and they all begged to have pictures taken of them tucking in! Everyone was in a giddy mood, and we had a great time shaking our butts to Bongo flava with Fran and the girls; even the Maasai guard, Babu Jona joined in on the dancing and was congratulating the girls as he did so! Eventually the time came when we had to say goodbye to the girls. It was very sad because we have become really close to them, but we gave them all our phone number so that we can meet up during the vacation!