Education Day

I had the pleasure of attending the annual Education Day ceremony yesterday.  Education Day is nation wide with school meeting at various sites around Malawi (according to their "zone") for speeches, singing, dancing, etc.

The Education Day ceremonies for our zone involved Gracious, three other secondary schools, and a couple of primary schools (not sure how many primary schools, but there were lots of little kids running around).

To quote one of my colleagues, Education Day was "well disorganized."

Not surprisingly, the ceremonies did not commence at 9:00 as scheduled.  By the time all the schools showed up and things got started it was 11:30.  Actually, two of the other secondary schools didn't show up at all; apparently they already went on holiday.  When ceremonies did begin, I was a little disappointed that Education Day wasn't exactly kid focused.  (I should have already known this from the non-kid friendly theme:  "School Management is the Responsibility of all Stake Holders.")  All the adults sat comfortably in the shade, facing the various student groups that performed, while the students stood in the sun, viewing the performances from behind.  Since there was no PA system, and no one made a serious attempt to keep the audience quiet, the only people that could actually hear the performances sat in the first few rows.  I was luckily in the first few rows, but alas, almost everything was in Chichewa.

Despite the disorganization, many of the performances (skits, dances, and songs concerning the theme) were quite good.  The pictures and video show a couple of different primary school groups and one from Gracious.  My favorite part of the performances was the fact that the stage continued to shrink as primary school children crowded closer and closer.  To try and control this, primary school teachers were literally using sticks to beat the children back.  (Don't worry, they weren't really hitting them.)

After all the speeches, songs, etc. (which seemed to go on forever, the kids were bored as well) we ate lunch, and got ready for a pre-planned teachers versus students football game.  For some reason, the game never took place.  I'm still not sure why, and no one else seems to know either.

Perhaps the most amazing thing, is that the headmasters, and various committee members met several times to plan Education Day.  Our headmaster was quite confused as to why nothing went as planned, but I can't say any of us were surprised; it was just another day in Malawi.