“Praying, but knowing you, you will have some sort of adventure to tell…”

My friend Karyne wrote this comment in response to my last post on Saturday about David’s graduation that night. Her words made me laugh. The reason they made me laugh, is because somehow I have this reputation.

The other reason her words made me laugh, was that I was remembering what happened on Saturday night….

Let me start by saying that the graduation was very fun. It was this great mixture of chaos and laughter that usually characterizes grads here. No one really knows what’s going on exactly, so basically you just go with the flow, come what may. As I wrote on Saturday, I was David’s “Father” that night. Each graduate enters and walks to the front to receive their diploma with an important person in their lives, be that a family member or whoever. One of my favourites that night, was a mother and son who were graduating together.

David and I were waiting for his turn near the back of the crowd of graduates. I was a little vague on the details of what was expected of me exactly, and David was even vaguer in his responses to my questions. =) So I figured I’d watch the people ahead of us, to get an idea of what was going to happen. David, however, didn’t want to wait in the middle of the crowd. There’s lots of time, he said, in response to my prompting. We have to get through the A’s and B’s before my name, he says. Just relax, he tells me.

Finally we hear a name that starts with C! I get excited and look at him expectantly. He just gives me the typical “Just calm yourself” up and down hand gesture they do here. “Tranquilo, hermano…”

Then we heard the second “C” name called.

“DAVID CUALLAR!”

The next thing we know, we fighting our way through the crowd to get to the aisle…a lady hands me a flower that I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with, and some guy gives us a grumpy look and pushes us towards the front. We stumbled for the first couple of steps and then found our groove…basically we jogged to the front. Ovando (one of our guys) and a few other photographers were trying to take our picture as we went forward, and they were practically falling over backwards to get out of our way. I’ve performed more than a few weddings over the years, and I always tell the wedding party not to walk too fast. Yea well…I should have listened to my own advice…

The whole time we were walking (jogging) to the front, David kept saying “Braso, hermano, braso.” In the moment, my Spanish, fickle friend that it is, failed me. I thought he was saying, “Hug” and all I could think of was, “Dude, I am so not hugging you right now…” He was actually saying “arm”, in that he wanted me to give him my arm to escort him to the front. In hind sight that seems a bit weird too, so I’m glad I stuck with my “just try to keep up” approach.

We got to the front and I wasn’t sure wether to accompany him onto the stage or not. Then the nice lady who was handing out diplomas gave me a “get your butt up here” look and hand gesture…so up we went. David received his diploma…I gave him the customary handshake-pat on both shoulders-handshake, and he went to sit down. Then they frantically called him back for an official photo with me and his diploma. So, then he went to sit down. Then I realized I still had the flower, and all the other grads had theirs, so obviously at some point I was supposed to have given it to him. So I called him back and gave him his flower (and I gave him a big hug too…not sure why it seemed better to do that on the stage in front of the whole stadium, but by then we were laughing pretty hard and it seemed like the right thing to do…). =)

Then he went and sat down.

Seriously, we rocked that graduation! Happily we weren’t the only people who had no idea what they were doing. And after the somewhat older lady with the bleach blonde (dyed) hair, in the low-cut and very short/tight dress escorted her husband (son?) in, no one even remembered us.

After a hour or so of more graduates entering, and a relatively short (thankfully) program, the whole thing was over and we were off to the house for the celebration supper. Isabel had organized a buffet of “typical” Bolivian food (which was what David requested). So we had spicy chicken, rapi (a boiled beef dish that pretty much melts in your mouth), spicy (something else) with rice and yuca. It was really good. We’d decorated the mango tree in our back yard with lots of white lights (it looked cooler in real life than it does in the pictures) and set up tables, and overall, it was really nice. We had a time of prayer for David, and I told a couple of stories, and then at about 12:30 at night, we called it quits.

The only other comment I’ll make is that our house was the cleanest it has ever been…ever… The guys spent nine hours on Saturday cleaning every nook and cranny and doing every odd job I could think off. And they didn’t (couldn’t) complain because “it’s for David’s grad!”. I was a happy guy.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures for you to enjoy…thanks for thinking about us and praying for David!

David with one of the girls from Isabel’s church.  She helps tutor the guys.

No need to tell us…we know we looked good…

I didn’t notice until today…but look at David.  He’s the one in the back row. 
You can’t miss him…

Think he’s proud?  =)

Supper in the back yard.  Nice lights on the tree, eh?  =)