Adieu, Adieu

On Thursday (the penultimate day of term) we had a farewell function for our grade 7s. They are all moving onto high school. The event was also used to welcome new grade 1 students (4-5 year olds). All parents were invited.

In anticipation of the event each of the top 3 grades were expected to use the final week to prepare a musical/ dance performance to entertain the parents. I decided to work with grades 6 and 7 on putting together a ‘concert’. Living out a long held dream, I became choir master.

Flicking through my ipod for songs to perform, I settled on starting with some Sound of Music. Initially the children were subjected to learning three songs – ‘Doe, ray, me’, ‘Raindrops on roses’ and ‘Climb every mountain’. They got the hang of the first two. And we worked up actions to go with each. ‘Climb every mountain’ proved beyond us – perhaps because the choir master was unable to demonstrate how to hit the high notes. As a result it was cut.

Trying out some pop music, the children took to ‘Let it be’. So we added it to our repertoire. We then worked on two Zulu songs that I had heard performed by the Drakensberg Choir – ‘Shosholoza’ and ‘Umkhoti’.

Delighted with our efforts, I went to tell the Principal about our readiness. ‘You have made excellent choices for the traditional songs’, he told me. ‘The parents will enjoy them. Umkhoti is a lovely song. It is about family celebrations at a wedding. The family are singing about their delight that the new wife will be able to do all their washing, cooking and cleaning.’ ‘Wonderful’, I replied.


The excitement of the children on Thursday morning was very obvious. Indeed it could be measured in hair length, as most of the girls had added long braids. Both grade 1s and grade 7s were dressed in academic robes (these are passed round all the schools in the area). The 3-4 year olds looked ‘omuhle kakooloo’ (very sweet).

The event itself was terrific, if very long – 4 hours! Though I understood very little, I was entertained throughout. One cause of great amusement was the loud speaker system. It was far too loud. A long sermon by the local priest was particularly deafening and many in the audience looked in visible pain.

The performances by the different grades were very impressive. However, many were curtailed mid flow by the two senior female teachers. Acting like x-factor judges they would shout ‘enough, enough’ in Zulu and usher the performers out the tent.

Our ‘set’ was not interrupted. But I’m not sure the locals were that impressed by Frauline Maria. Polite applause accompanied our exit from the stage.

After the event I was invited for supper with the elders. Worried about my ability to stretch my Zulu, I sat down with trepidation. Fortunately, I was more than able to contribute to the silence. I filled gaps between mouthfuls with lots of inane grinning. Then I was able to excuse myself for photos with the grade 7s.

And so the school year finishes tomorrow. We start again in January. Tomorrow I shall try to post family Christmas presents. Then I’m off to try and fix the car.

Mary is on call this weekend. I’ll let you know where we decide to go next weekend.