Graduation with music

The day has finally arrived, it's graduation day and with it, the musical performance of the century.

We decorated the massive hall yesterday with flowers and balloons and the sparse, vacuous space looked pretty, like a concrete gargoyle with a dress on. The show was meant to start at 9A.M but with Africa time and the logistical nightmare of getting all the parents and their children seated the proceedings rolled to a tardy start at 10.30A.M.

The music class and i had a last minute backstage rehearsal and then we went on stage to the sizeable crowd of proud mothers and fathers and already bored kids. We first sang the Cameroonian National anthem and a song to welcome the parents to the ceremony. Thet went really well and there was no major catastrophes apart from my poor rendition of the anthem. Then we sang 'Cameroon Sun' and i danced about and strummed away maniacally on my unplugged guitar. There was one microphone and it was pushed under one wee girls face, with the others signing their wee hearts out behind her, it sounded pretty good, then the microphone broke but we perserviered and i think won over the audience with our charming performance. They danced off the stage singing a very funky traditional African song.

The gig over i could relax and enjoy the show. All the volunteers were sat in a place of honour to the right of the stage and we watced Stanley Kamga, the head teacher, do his best hosting the chaotic schedule. There was a hilarious game of musical chairs by the class 1's where DJ Dan, Orocks son, pumped out a really innapropriate 50 cent song and stopped it to the dejection of the last kid to fumble and fight to a chair to sit down. I'm sure it probably scarred them emotionally in some way, at least that's the way it looked as they walked off stage withe their head hung to a chorus of raptourous laughter.

The class 5's did a journalistic evaluation of UAC and what it had managed to achieve in the last year. And there were many speeches too. The noise of chatter in the hall was drowned out by a sudden vicious downpour which made all the balloons we'd tied to the windows fly about eractically. It really was organized chaos as water sprayed through the windows and encouraging kids to scream louder as balloons told us where the wind was. I just looked and laughed at it all.

Time was marching on and i was aware that we had not yet gotten onto the not insubstantial task of handing out the hundred prizes. Each class from nursery to the graduating class 5's were in the running for prestigious awards like 'Most improved student', 'Most tidy' and they were ironically given a washing bowl to be even more tidy presumably. 'Most punctual' and 'Best attendance'. Valerie and i presented the awards to the class 2's and my bosom swelled with pride as i seen the wee guys in their mortar boards and over-sizes cloaks come to collect them. I donated a few notebooks and my book 'Images of Scotland' , i don't know which lucky boy or girl won the book, but i'm sure they would take a book on Scotland anyday over an xbox 360or a bike.

So the curtains fell on the show at 2P.M and i was exhausted, i took loads of pictures of the occasion and it really was a brilliant ending to the term.