Graduation Season

We have been to three graduation, or promocion, ceremonies in San Nicolas in the last week, and let us just say, they are no small matter. Each ceremony is not only a graduation, we discovered, but also a reunion and a church service, all wrapped up into one four-hour-long service. All said, we have spent more time watching people graduate in the last week than we have spent cooking or eating or maybe even sleeping. (That last one is only a slight exaggeration). And when we do sleep, the graduation theme song haunts our dreams.

The first graduation service we went to was for our friend Fatima, who works at the pharmacy next door to us and was graduating from a local agricultural school. We were invited to the second graduation by our friends Samari and Tamara, sisters who were graduating from 6th grade and kindergarten respectively. The final ceremony, last Saturday, was for our students graduating from high school.

Working on the banner the night before graduation

From our estimation, here are the essential ingredients to a promocion service in San Nicolas, Nicaragua:

1. The graduation theme song, which is different from the one used in American graduation services, but equally as repetitive.
2. Balloons, especially white and blue balloons for public school graduations.
3. Female audience members wearing 6-inch heels and tight glittery dresses.
4. A rousing sermon and some heartily-bellowed hymns.
5. A large congratulatory banner; drop-shadow letters are mandatory.
6. Walking down the aisle with a parent or sibling.

10 a.m., David waits outside the locked church

We also learned this week that when someone tells you that a graduation starts at 10 a.m., they really mean that the graduates start thinking about donning their gowns at 10 a.m. If you go to the church at 10 a.m. for the graduation, the church doors will most definitely be locked, and no one else will be there. 

But in spite of the long, sometimes-boring nature of the graduation services, we were honored to be invited to attend all of these ceremonies, and to watch the pride in our students' eyes as they walked down the aisles in their graduation gowns. So many students have to drop out of school early to work in their family's pulperias or take care of a sibling or child, that graduating from high school is a huge accomplishment, and graduating from a post-high school program is even more admirable. At the high school where we teach, you can see the drop-out progression when you look at the numbers of students in each class. In our 7th grade class, there are over 30 students; in 11th grade (the final year of high school), there are about 12. 

Jarol with his mother, Dona Victoria

The school offers GED-like classes on Sundays as well for adults who never graduated from high school, and we have become friends with Jarol, one of these students. After the graduation ceremonies, we were invited to parties at a few different students' homes, including Jarol's. Jarol is this big bulky manly-man who once made fun of me for complaining of an ant bite ("Come on, you are so much bigger than it!"), but he was visibly glowing with pride after graduating from high school. 

We are so happy for all of the students who graduated from the different programs in San Nicolas this last week, and we want to congratulate them and honor their accomplishments by posting a few photos of them.

Tamara graduating from kindergarten

Samari graduating from sixth grade

Fatima and her dad

Our neighbor, Juan Ariel, with his mother Dina