Graduation Ceremony

On Staurday of this week, Young People We Care's Finance Officer, George, received his degree from the University of Kumasi.  A proud and exciting moment, witnessed by many of George's family and friends.

Set in a pleasant open area in front of the main buildings, well shaded by trees and canopies, the ceremony started, according to the program, at 10.00 prompt. The 'prompt' was undoubtedly to indicate an actual clock time as opposed to a Ghanaian 'sometime' - if that had been the understanding, chances are we'd still be there now.  To my surprise, 'prompt' seemed to work and we got underway only a few minutes after 10.  Maybe 'prompt' is the magic word to get something to happen on time here.  I'll try it sometime.

After various formalities, including a procession of dignitaries, professors and visting speakers, we all settled down to the main business of the morning - speeches.  Lots of speeches.  To say that these were long and drawn out would be like calling the Sahara 'a bit sandy'.  Frequently, a speech would continue for 10-15 minutes, you'd be thinking 'this one must be nearly done' and then the speaker would 'introduce' the actual speaker.  After an hour and a quarter, I checked the programme notes, and saw that we were on item 7 of 15.  At one point, shortly after 12.00, the audience burst out into a spontaneous round of applause and cheering.  I assumed they had been roused by something the speaker had said, until George Senior leaned over and explained to us.  It turned out that this was the Ghanaian way of dropping polite hints to their honoured guest speaker, the Rev Dr Fred Deegbe, that he might like to speed things up a bit.  Quite.  To his credit, he took the hint with semingly good grace and left the stage.  The succession of speeches was alleviated by occasional displays of drumming and dancing from a local cultural group, and some shrill renditions of chorale-like music from the college choir, with a booming synth-organ accompaniment.

Finally, at around 12.45 - 1.00, they decided to award some degrees.  As each name was read out, you could tell how many supporters the student had (and where the family was sitting) by the level and location of cheering that broke out in response.  Having sat through the morning so far, I doggedly kept my place in the program, determined that George would be well represented for his few seconds in the limelight.  We didn't let him down.

As each student got their certificate, they wandered away from the presentation area, and as the announcer implored them meekly to return to their seats, everyone took the opportunity to mill around and take photos of the new graduates with their friends and proud families.

We then spent a very pleasant afternoon socialising with George and his college friends.  First of all, we went to an upmarket hotel for a chinese meal, ate quietly, looked through the fence at the swimming pool, and then drove on to another friend's house for some drinks, more food, and more photos.  Finally, we rolled home at the civilised hour of 7pm.