Grade 10 leaving dinner

Schools in Namibia go up to Grade 12. However here in Tses due of the low number of children who actually manage to pass Grade 10 the school had to shut down their Grade 11 and 12 classes. As a result the children have to say goodbye after Grade 10, and this term they had a party to celebrate.

To me it would perhaps have made more sense to have the leaving party in a couple of months, once the exams were over and they were actually leaving the school. But apparently it's better to do it now, before all of the exams.... I don't see the logic in that but, then again, i'm beginning to realise that a lot of things don't make any logical sense here.

They had decorated  the hostel eating hall really prettily and they served up a three course meal - which included over 60 handmade soft pretzels lovingly made by Sachi and Daisy!  Daisy and I couldn't appreciate the food fully however, since we had already eaten. We were only invited to the dinner five minutes before it started!
 

Since I had the most professional looking camera I was given the task of being the paparazzi for the evening. Although fun at first I quickly reached the conclusion that a career as a paparazzi was not the one for me!






















Once dinner was over the children were allowed to get up and dance. As Sachi had promised us, some of the kids danced Nama style - which basically means sticking their bums out and dancing like that!

















The evening was also made entertaining by the presence of a drunk secondary teacher. He kept on standing up and yelling at the learners to be quiet and to sit down and stop dancing - even when the programme quite clearly had time to dance written on it. Unfortunately he was also holding a bright red walking stick for some reason, which he kept on swinging around wildly. There was more than one instance where someone had to duck before they got smacked in the face! It got to the point where even the other teachers were laughing at him!





Unfortunately he developed a fascination with both mine and Daisy's hair, he kept on grabbing it and trying to pull it over his own head. In the end whenever I saw him approaching I would just put my hood up and try to hide, much to the amusement of the other teachers.


 

Overall it was a very fun evening, and it was really nice to see all of the kids enjoying themselves and having a laugh - despite being repeatedly yelled at with a drunk man wielding a walking stick!