Oh the humanity! Just when you think you’ve managed for forget something so awful, it comes right back, smacks you in the face, laughs at you, and makes you feel even worse than it did the first time. That was today.
I really hope that this year’s Abertura (the Opening Ceremony held at the Secondary School's to mark the start the new school year) doesn’t reflect the pace of this school year. It was so slow, like every single individual part. And we spent so much time just sitting and waiting. They said it would start at 8am, and even though all the students arrived on time and were seated in the cafeteria ready to begin, we didn’t start until nearly 10am. Typical.
At 830am, we professors began our walk down to the event from the teachers’ lounge. I swear to you, it couldn’t be more than two football fields, but you’d have thought that by the pace my colleagues were walking, a new-born could have learned to write Shakespeare-esque tragedies before we arrived at our destination.
We were directed to sit in chairs in the front row and along the sides of the room. After taking our seats, we sat there and waited with the students an hour and a half for the Municipal President to arrive. He finally got there a few minutes before 10am, and we immediately started what would be (spoiler alert) an extremely long and boring ceremony.
First we sang the Mozambican National Anthem, which, if I haven’t already complained about it, is like a patriotically-Mozambican version of UB40’s Red Red Wine, in that it’s pretty much the same loop on repeat for 20 minutes, just a whole lot less catchy and a whole lot more lethargic. It’s about 17 minutes too long, and in reality, kind of epitomizes culture here in that it’s inefficient and loves to waste time. When we sung it this time though, we sung it extra slow. It’s like they knew I was already in pain. Jab the dagger in my gut and slowly, slowly twist. I experiences the energy-zapping power of this song, and this showing was by far the most unenthusiastic version I have ever witnessed here in Moz. I think one of the older guards actually starting have a boredom-triggered stroke about half way through the song. Unfortunately for him, because you are required to show respect by standing completely still, he had to suffer until we finished. Poor guy.
After singing, we did elongated introductions where the director introduced each class (8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th) and then each group of professors (Portuguese, Ingles, Math, Chem, Bio, Physics, etc.). This was actually pretty fun because all the students yell and scream for the groups of teachers as they stand and wave. It makes you feel pretty good about yourself!
Our director then began the most painful part of the ceremony (yeah, it was even worse than the anthem, it was like five anthems combined into one): the reading of some extremely boring document (more like a book) in its entirety. He literally read every single item on every single page, even taking the time to say each point. “Section 1.1 Tuition…Ponto 1.2: First Day of School…Ponto 2.1.1: Grades…Seccao 3.1.2.4.19: More boring things you don’t need to know, but I’m going to read anyways because here in Mozambique we make a big deal about petty things just for the sake of feeling important.” 45 minutes later, after the guard had another boredom-induced stroke and we lost a handful of students to mid-morning naps, he finished.
The ceremony concluded in a similar fashion to what happened the year before. We all went outside and watched as the important people planted trees. I actually really liked this part. I took some pictures and we called it a day.
Here’s to a great – and hopefully fast-paced – school year!
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