Capping

A few weeks ago we witnessed the graduation ceremony for the Year 5 boys at CSI Jessie Moses School. Lynn mentioned a bit about it in her Fashion story. It was a nice afternoon - normal thing, few songs and presentations. We were informed last week that there was going to be a Kindergarten Graduation on Monday.

We awoke on Monday morning to find about 1,000 blue plastic chairs arranged in rows on the dirt quadrangle of the school. Asked about it and were told, “Yes that is for the graduation service and it will start at 5:30 pm.”

We wandered down at about 5:00pm and soon afterwards were ushered into the ‘Official Enclosure’. We are getting used to this. It is part of their wanting to respect us.

What follows is hard to describe, and for us even harder to believe. The band starts playing and in march 220 (yes that is 220!) kindergarten children wearing soft pink Academic Gowns. They are accompanied by about 20 of our Hostel girls (dressed in Indian Girl Guide uniforms), who act as ushers for the little ones.

There follows a program of over two hours of dance and song and the ceremony of Capping. The children move onto the stage where they are capped ie presented with their matching soft pink Mortar cap, by one of the dignitaries present. They then move on to the Principal to be presented with their Kindergarten Graduation Certificate.

The 220 children are split into four groups for the whole process with a song or dance presentation interspersed. Much to our surprise, after the third group was ‘capped’, while we were watching the next performance, the Principal sidled up to Lynn and asked her if she would honour them by ‘capping’ the last group.

At this stage we should mention that all of the other presenters came dressed, ready to present (in magnificent saris). Having no idea of the ‘honour’ about to be bestowed on her, Lynn was only dressed in a very casual salwar (with no scarf, which is tantamount to sacrilege). When the Principal asked if she would do the honour of ‘capping’ the last group she was a little hesitant and embarrassed because of her casual dress. The Principal didn’t seem to have a problem with it so to respect their wishes she accepted and really enjoyed the experience.

Before this we had noticed that the previous ‘cappers’ had no idea of where to place a Mortar on someone’s head. The sight of small children with them placed on backwards, sideways and diagonally was frustrating to us but did not seem to matter to anyone else. Suffice it to say, I awarded Lynn the ‘capper of the night award’ as she managed to cap all of her 55 children uniformly and correctly.