Graduation Day

Gondar as well as Bahir Dar were also celebrating their graduation from university.  How unlike my own graduation where the hired gowns are grabbed off you virtually as you get off the stage!  How nice to be able to wear it all weekend as a recognition of your hard work!

Many families had come up from the country and were therefore less likely to have seen foreigners in the flesh, only on the TV and so we were objects of curiosity.  People took our photos and some even asked us to pose with us for a picture such was our celebrity status. It’s a reversal of Georgia where black people were considered strange and wonderful and particularly in the villages, people wanted to touch their hair and skin and have their photo taken.  It was actually quite nice!

Proud Family

In one of the castles Gillian told me that this cutest of all little boys, no more than 3 years old, done up to the nines for the celebration saw me as he came into one of the rooms of the castle.  He was so startled at seeing a ‘faranji’ (foreigner) that he literally jumped in fright and banged his head.  As a mother and teacher it won’t be the first or last time I will have scarred a child for life lol. 

A Graduate and his family

Proud Graduate

People were happy to pose for us and didn’t seem to feel it was intrusive.  They were basking in ‘their day’.  However when I asked permission to take his picture he mumbled something about being paid for it.  In England that would have been considered a joke but here …. Well.  I just ignored him and took a picture.