Assembled

On Friday the school had a prize-giving day. The guest of honour was a representative of one of the largest fast-food chains in Zimbabwe, and (predictably) was late. The music was very, VERY loud and the normally shabby hall had been transformed by draping the walls with colourful cloth and balloons.

It started over one hour late, so while we waited the marching girls practiced on stage, in a flurry of red and white uniforms, and after that they got some boys to do some rapping, and then some other boys did some break-dancing, and they looked as if they were being electrocuted!

The guest of honour finally arrived, the marching girls performed, but after that there were a lot of dull speeches, and then someone recited a poem. It would be hard enough to memorize a poem without having to memorize the dramatic actions to go with it. The choir sounded beautiful, almost as good as angels (I have never heard angels singing, but it couldn’t be much better than this). The guest of honour gave her speech, and then there were two more poems. We had been sitting for over two hours, and finally they got started on the prize giving!

     

In assemblies in Australia, if someone gets an award, there is a lot of polite clapping, but here, if someone gets a prize, there is yelling, and screaming, and all that person’s friends and family run up the walkway with prizewinner, and are laughing, and crying. It is chaotic. And funny. It’s like they’ve won the lotto, not the geography award. I enjoyed it lots and lots.

Afterwards, to stop our numb bums falling off (we sat for four and ½ hours!), we walked to the shops and had a juice. It was sweet.

Abbey