Graduation Day

The week started brightly enough. The weather has changed and each morning, with a sheet to stay warm, a cool breeze prompts me to turn over and stay in bed a little longer.

College was preparing for graduation. Teams of students, directed by tutors, slashed, cut, cleaned and swept. The trunk of a huge flame tree, which has lain sleeping for at least a year, was being cut and made ready for removal. A man with a chain saw had been hired especially for this task and so impressive was it, that a dozen students and tutors stood and watched the sawdust swirl in the wind. The area was being cleared and prepared for the graduation ceremony to be held under a canopy. He spent two hours cutting great blocks off the massive trunk, but then spent five hours stripping the saw and re-assembling it – chain and nuts and metal plates strewn across the grass. In the event, Mama Ngonyani’s instincts were sound, safety won over imagination and the great ugly concrete hall was used rather than an airy space shaded by trees. It rained solidly for the next two days, so safety was seen as the right choice.

As the season changes from summer to winter, the rain is more persistent. I had asked about preparing a small plot for planting but was told not to bother as it won’t rain now until December. The day the rain started every bajaj driver wore a pained expression. You’d have thought they would be pleased to be in such demand. Usually every street corner is littered with these three-wheeler taxis but in the driving rain, motorcycles are not wanted and bajaj could charge the earth, but they don’t.

Thankfully on the morning of graduation day, there was a cheery breeze, some fluffy clouds and a warm sun. Two days of rain had delayed the programme of preparation and Maskat was bowling round campus with a fixed stare. Many hands make light work and by lunch-time, students were enjoying a soda as tutors and guests started to emerge in their best attire.   Still, Maskat didn’t particularly want to hear me complain that the power sockets in my classroom were fused.

“Yes Mr Adrian. Fundi will come.”

“But Maskat, the sockets in the office block are out too and your visitors arrive in two hours.”

His face changed as he realised that the ICT presentation and the whole of the evening reception depended on the use of those sockets. A car was dispatched to find Chiwembe.

“It’s Friday, Maskat. He won’t be here for another half hour.” 

I have got to know Chiwembe. He has been the college electrician for donkey’s years. He is a slight man, who cycles to work on a great iron bicycle, twice his weight and occasionally and quietly, he will tell me of the unusual pains he suffers - numbness he calls it - in his chest and arms. 

The fault was quickly found in a cable located below a rusty junction box. A pick-axe was summoned, flag stones smashed and slowly with the help of one of the students,  some great black cable, as thick as my wrist, was drawn out and pared and with some pliers and black tape, work began.

With bunting waving cheerily in the breeze, the steps boasting a fresh coat of paint and people nervously adjusting new shirts and sporting stiff shoes, an air of nervousness crept amongst us.

“Fundi. You will have this work finished by two o’clock?”, snapped the Principal,

 It was less a question than a statement, but Chiwembe smiled and said, “Yes,” but without conviction. As the guests of honour went past, we formed an impromptu welcoming party. The Minister stopped to shake my hand. He is a large man, forties with a winning smile, with expensively fashionable hair and bold gold-framed glasses. He could have been a seventies TV detective. As we were introduced, he glanced over my shoulder to see Chiwembe struggling with the last of the cable. A warm grin broke into his face,

“Mambo,  Chiwembe.”

Chiwembe grinned back. Across the rubble and between the shoulders of the worthy guests, the Minister stretched to shake Chiwembe’s hand. Only then did I learn that Minister Kasim had been a tutor here over nine years ago and remembered staff like Chiwembe well and with much fondness. This chance meeting set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.

We took our seats in the hall in time for a soulful rendition of the national anthem. When important guests were introduced, the students reserved the biggest cheer for their own VIP. He was seated immediately behind the large frame of the Minister. As he stood, his squat body belied his great heart. Maskat was the crowd’s favourite.

For the next two hours we were entertained by rappers in pumps and t-shirts, young children with drums and skirts and Form IV students performing a ‘jive’ - more like line dancing with African rhythm. But what rhythm! After the Minister had spoken for fifteen minutes, I thought he had been on too long, but then with a slight change to his tone, a huge roar of applause would swell the room. Every word was devoured. And after forty-five minutes, still the crowd were calling, “Kweli!”  and “Kabisa” –(quite right). It was a politician’s speech to a crowd he knew well. I understood not one word but I watched faces. And their faces told me that I was in a community of people bound in common cause with a common spirit.

That night, as Kasim spoke again, this time as a former colleague and friend he asked for Chiwembe by name. Chiwembe moved to the front of the room and smiled, enjoying the attention and the memory as Kasim remembered old times. I said to Chiwembe later,

“You go all year Chiwembe, and no-one notices, no-one asks. And then on this special day, whether it’s blown fuses or Ministers of State, suddenly everyone wants to know, ‘Where’s Chiwembe?”

We laughed like drains.