Speech Day
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 14/Jun/2010 10:29, 34 days ago
(Written 11/06/2010 17:30, RED5, Janjanbureh)3pm. Not a time when many people are strolling around the streets of Janjanbureh; most are in their homes sheltering from the heat. And on a normal Saturday, I would have been one of them.This however, is no normal Saturday in Janjanbureh. This is Saturday 5thJune 2010, otherwise known as... Armitage Senior Secondary School’s Speech Day and Prizegiving. And so, in the baking heat of 3pm, I and my two VSO colleagues find ourselves trudging up the dusty road to the school. The Headmaster had sent invitations to everyone at the RED, and we three had reluctantly decided that, deathly dull as it was almost certain to be,we really should show our faces. Y’ know, try to keep up VSO’s good name and all that.3:15, we reach the school and are directed to a quadrangle behind the main hall. There are rows and rows of chairs set out facing the top table, with a couple of trees providing some sort of shade. A Gambian flag hangs, lopsidedly, behind the top table, and off to one side a PA system is being tested. The most noticeable thing is that, even though we’re 15 minutes after the time stated on the invitation, not a single person is yet sat in any of the chairs. GMT, Gambian Maybe Time, in operation obviously.So we sit down– at least, being first, we can pick the most shady spot – and we wait.Before too long, people start dribbling in and taking seats, a parade of Gambian styles: men in their baggy robes in all shades from brilliant white to dark green, women in long skirts with matching tops and, in many cases, the most elaborate, precisely bound head-ties. Everyone’s hand is shaken, everyone exchanges the staccato rattle of the formal Mandinka greetings. Everyone smiles.Finally, Mr David Haffner, headteacher and master of ceremonies, steps up to the podium:“if you please, time is very much against us. Would all Armitage students please come to the square and take your seats”. And he sits down again.A few minutes later, after a sum total of zero movement, he tries again, this time reminding everyone that“our distinguished guests are waiting at the Governor’s house, and according to the protocols everyone must be seated before they arrive”. This is news to me, but it does go some way to explaining why, in a country where punctuality is a foreign concept, the highest rankers are always the latest of the late.While we wait Mr Haffner summons up the scout band and the choir to“entertain” us. The band is particularly impressive: a marching ensemble all smartly kitted out in their Armitage uniforms, brandishing a mixture of piccolos, bugles and various drums. They start marching, up and down, back and forth, in the blazing sun, the piccolo players’ faces drenched insweat as they belt out something roughly approximating the tune of “Merrily We Roll Along”.After about two and a half songs later, as the band continues to march (except, by this time, it’s more of a shuffle), Liz murmurs across to me: “have the buglers actually played yet?” I’m about to answer no when, right on cue, the four buglers at the very rear of the column raise their instruments. We wait with bated breath, as they inhale deeply before blasting forth a strident, fournote fanfare. None of them play the right note, none of themeven hit thesamenote, but they lack in accuracy they make for in volume. You go for it, boys.Eventually, the band is sent away, the dignitaries arrive (everyone had to stand as the honoured guests were announced by the MC) and the speeches can begin. We start with a word-for-word reading, titles and all, of the headteacher’s annual report. This is the longest speech of the evening and, we decide later, also the most interesting. Which probably tells you all you need to know about the rest of the speeches: they are long, rich in the speakers’ floweriest and most obscure language, and generally not actually sayingvery much. There are innumerable references to how “august” this gathering is, and variations on the same theme. Before each speaker approaches the podium, he is introduced by Mr Haffner, and when I say introduced I mean the kind of reallythoroughintroductions which start with“Mr Ceesay was born in...”. As well as colourful prose, the speakers all try to outdo each other on the length of their preamble: “Honoured guests; guest speaker; Governor, Central River Region; Permanent Secretary of Education; Director of Education, Central River Region; Headteacher of the Armitage Senior Secondary School; Teachers of the Armitage...”. The winner is the young woman speaking for the Ex-students’ Association. It may only have felt like it, but I’ll swear that preamble lasted at least five minutes.And then in the middle of all the talking, an interlude: performances from the gymnastics club and the drama group. The gymnasts are up first, a group of lithe young Gambians in basketball uniforms, who sprint out to their appointed spot, setting up a vault and the mattresses which are to act as crash mats with martial efficiency. Then there’s a quick warm up jog, and the show can start, a succession of bodies flying and somersaulting over the vault.To the accompaniment ofBarbie Girl.Priceless.The prize-giving, when it finally arrives as the sun sets and the bats start to flutter across the gathered heads, is something of an anti-climax, Mr Haffner calling out names from his podium only to find that the recipient of the previous prize is still trying to fight his way through the throng to the front. Pete is, without warning, called up to present a prize: a two foot high trophy, in fact. Somehow, he manages not to fall over his own feet, drop the trophy or anything. Liz, having lived with him for thirty years, can’t believe it.Eventually, it’s all over, and the masses can disperse. Some people hang around for the afterparty, most head for their homes but, after more than five hours, we three head for Bendula’s Bar, having unanimously decided that there is only one thing which can help restore us to some sense of sanity: whiskey.