June 6, 2009 -- posted by Karen

Today was graduation at the College. This is a huge deal to students and their families who have sacrificed for years so that a family member could get an education. For many families, this meant only seeing their husbands/fathers for a few weeks every year since they live a distance away and cannot afford to travel home very often. For these students it meant living in a crowded room with twenty other men which must be a hard and humbling thing to do at their age. There were fourteen graduates, two of whom were women.

The campus was all cleaned up with banners unfurled etc. The ceremony itself was a very long three hour affair with about two thirds of it in Ahmaric and the other third in English. It is an Ethiopian tradition for the graduating class valedictorian to give “recommendations” (ie. criticisms) in the valedictory address. An interesting practice. I also played keyboard for two English songs that we sang. I missed certain portions of the ceremony since I was having major coughing fits that left me gagging with tears streaming down my face and I chose to leave the auditorium for those episodes.

In the evening we celebrated Lois’ birthday and Mike’s farewell with a guesthouse party at Dianne and Fanosie’s. Tomorrow Mike leaves for his trip back to the States. That means we will have the apartment all to ourselves. All three boys wanted Mike’s room but when we picked a number between 1 and 100, Isaac was the lucky winner. The other two boys are rather envious that he will have his own room with a double bed and ensuite bathroom while they will still be sharing a bedroom with single beds!