Pomp and Circumstance

There has been a great deal of official events/shenanigens around here lately. Friday was the graduation of 7th form (the last free year of school). The graduation was on our campus so all the school kids came to the Rec Hall ate a ton of food, sang and danced. But not me, I worked. I did cut up like 20 pineapples to help prep.

For me the big deal of the weekend (and why I worked the whole thing) was the first monthly training meeting for my Microfinance clients. It was the big transition meeting, and since we have 250 clients it is held once on Saturday and once on Sunday. I gave a speech to introduce myself, in swahili. Now before you all get overly excited NO I don't know swahili that well yet. I mean C'MON I have been like 2 weeks. But I did write a fairly simple speech in English and then have one of our assistants translate it and spend a whole day fretting over the pronunciation.
Saturday it was ok, I powered through it. But Sunday the crowd was FEELIN' IT. I mean there were several applause breaks. Andy compared it to watching the state of the union, I told him, yeah maybe if every time Obama was interrupted he giggled.

And for the grand finally, the Uhuru Freedom Torch of Tanzania came to campus today - Amazing the amount of grandeur that comes with that thing: 20 land rovers, a marching band, a dance troop, armed guards, district officials and lord knows who the rest were.
I do have to say it was a great ceremony, short, organized, nonviolent, and very musical. At the end of which they lined up the staff and we touched the torch, which I was told by the official makes me now Tanzanian.
Pretty amazing stuff for just two weeks in!