Bingu's 77th

Monday morning, my new teaching assignment, Form 4 (12^th Grade) Life Skills, gets me worried about how little time there is left in the term. This particular subject only receives two, forty minute periods of attention per week, which means I’m down to ten periods before exams…or so I think. I’m confirming with my friend Ann, who casually mentions that next week is a mid-term holiday. Instead of just Thursday (Martyr’s Day), as I’ve anticipated, we have the entire week off. What?! That reduces my class time by one fifth! Sometimes Form 4, which is gearing up for the all important Malawi Secondary Certificate of Education tests in July, comes Saturdays and during holidays, I’m told. Wait and see…

Tuesday, I’m preparing to make the best of the week before the holiday when a buzz starts in the teachers lounge. My Form 1 (9^th Grade) students have been summoned by the president’s event crew – he needs more performers for the public birthday celebration Saturday. As the school attended by the children of the gardeners, housekeepers and guards at his estate, we are an obvious choice. The students are understandably excited and riled up. They charge out to the parking lot to wait for the bus. And wait. And wait some more. One of my periods has evaporated by this point. I go and call them in, telling them we’ll wait in class. It would be unfair, at this point, to give the Social Studies exam they prepared for, so instead we try to push forward with English for the week. One period is all I manage to squeeze before their distraction takes over and they boil back out of the classroom. I arrive the next day to find that, in fact, the students waited three hours beyond the end of school, missing all of their later periods, and the bus never came.

We’re clicking along in the morning and just before my class, a huge, open-sided army transport truck pulls into the car park. There's a rumor that the president’s organizers think that we’ve blown them off in a deliberate attempt to snub the country’s leader (actual story: there was no diesel for transport). The head teacher decides that the entire school had better attend in order to show our commitment.

The kids in the back of the truck are a photo opportunity missed. Packed in like sardines, but smiling, waving and having a great time, they’re fun to watch as a few other teachers and I pile into my car to follow our students to the stadium. We arrive in time to see the army, police and prison guards practice their elaborate marching routine, accompanied by a combined police / army band. But even their thirty minute routine barely cuts into our new wait time.

Hours pass and we still have no instructions. Across the stadium, the primary school students are well organized and sounding good with their songs, synchronized clapping and spelling out of “Happy Birthday” with their bodies. They’ve been here an entire week already. Teachers are called out to the parking lot and we think we’re getting directions, but no. They’re just passing out the commemorative Bingu’s 77^th Birthday chitenje. (The other teachers are angry that we’re only given two meters – not enough for a full traditional top and skirt.) Then comes lunch: a bottle of soda and enormous bread roll for each of the 800 or 1000 students who have been recruited for the event. Passing this out would be a logistical nightmare in the states, but Malawian order and  respect for elders prevails and we accomplish it with relative grace. Just at the end of lunch, an organizer comes by: “You have three minutes! Three minutes!”

Our students, it turns out, will be doing a marching and scatter-formation routine to form a redundant “Happy Birthday Bingu 77” on the field. Their final position? Kneeling prostrate on the grass/mud.

By this point, about 3:30 in the afternoon, I’m feeling completely heat exhausted and sun burnt. It’s good to be part of the teacher crew and participate in the adventure with the rest of the school but at the same time wearing to constantly ask what’s going on and fry in the sun, all the time feeling frustrated about the learning time being missed. At least the kids are having a blast! I use my volunteer teacher status, as well as the fact that, not understanding Chichewa, I’m not much use as an organizer, to beg off and head home. After another three hours of chaperoning this morning, I’m playing it by ear on the rest of the rehearsals and attendance at the event itself on Saturday…