The hustle begins

“Graduates think that the hustle stops when they get a degree. After getting your degree, that’s when the real hustle begins.” – Lisias Negonga.

Disclaimer: No graduates were harmed in the making of this production, I swear!

“Do you mind being the director of proceedings at a small gathering of few, to celebrate me successfully extracting myself from the clutches of Tertiary Education?” She asked, I did not hesitate to agree. But she didn’t exactly use that phrase, she used words like ‘Master of Ceremony (MC)’ and ‘Party’. Only later did I realize what I had gotten myself into, I was going to have to address people. Not just people but grown-ups, would my sarcasm be greeted with applause or with cries of kill the MC? 

In truth I had a month to prepare, but I turned up unprepared. What can I say? I am a serial procrastinator at times. Evidently I also turned up early, way too early. Gift in hand, I was greeted by empty chairs. The only signs of life were my co-MC the mistress of ceremonies and a troop of youngish looking post adolescents running and scurrying around like a confused puppy trying to chase its own tail. “I can’t, I smell like meat,” she said as I stood with my arms out, ready to embrace her. She forgot to say that she also smelled like smoke, sweat and mildly contained panic. Not that you can smell panic but you get what I mean? Organizing your own gathering is akin to splitting yourself into three, if that even makes sense.

 In Africa a social event starts when people arrive, it doesn’t start at the time stated on the program. That’s how things work here, punctuality is a fancy word in the dictionary that can only be spelled by a few. The greatest deception in this day and age is make up, a little foundation, eye liner, mascara and the right shade of lipstick can do wonders. It can turn ‘smelling like meat’ into looking and smelling like a university graduate. I would just like to clarify that I am not an expert on how a graduate smells like. 

The great thing about having two people host an event is that one can distract the audience from how average the other is, and boy was I average. Speaking in my vernacular to individuals from an older generation, now that’s a challenge greater than passing calculus. My Oshiwambo is pretty solid, in writing. But speaking an Oshiwambo dialect is another monster all together, I kept pausing and running out of words. Hiding my head in the program notes didn’t help either, yep it was going to be a long two hours. Funniest thing was there was this one uncle who kept translating certain words and throwing in funny anecdotes. “I graduated a year earlier than she did, although we started Varsity at the same time.” Said the mistress of ceremonies. To which the uncle replied, “Oh, is that so. It probably because you tricked your friend, you probably read faster than she does.” The joke is much funnier in Oshiwambo, trust me.

The highlight was the parents speeches, parents have this tendency of making a point of highlighting embarrassing details, like their offspring’s inclination towards pork sausage. Parental entities have no chill, none whatsoever. Because I was hungry, I started speeding through the program. Until the ‘friends’ decided to bring everyone to tears, except me because my crying mechanism was damaged beyond repair in childhood. There is really nothing like a story told by a best friend who stood in the trenches with you, no one knows the sacrifice needed to succeed as intimately as a best friend who stood in the trenches with you.

But is graduating from a tertiary institution really something to be celebrated? The facts don’t lie, like an uncle pointed out. In Namibia only about 15 % of kids that make it out of formal school go to university. Less than half graduate, so in a world where bad friends can lure you away from your goals, maybe it is worth appreciating. In a world where pregnancy, sugar daddies and destructive lifestyles stand in a young woman’s path to success, maybe having two of them (graduates) standing side by side is something to celebrate.

All I know is I was glad to get to the end of the program. According to various sources I was above average, one of the uncles said he kept waiting for me to lead them to the promised land of milk and honey, he must have had me confused with Moses. After all was done and the grown ups had gone, it was time to do what young people do best, socialise and have a good time. In simple terms, “Tear shit up like born frees on their worst behavior!”

No graduates were harmed in the making of this production

 

I was trying to translate the word 'Chemistry' into Oshiwambo