EXPECTATA DIES ADERAT…..

Sunday was May 15^th.. the day of graduation. There was a reception being held at the Mylan Puskar Center at the Mountaneer Stadium. There were lots of eats and victuals and stuff that makes you fat. This was the Arts and Sciences reception and so I got to meet a lot of my former colleagues, including Dean Almasy, Gorham and Levelle. The rest of the family joined me there and I helped myself to two 2005 Arts and Sciences mugs.

Above is the entrance to the Mountaneer Stadium in Morgantown. I watched a number of games in this stadium, with the biggest game being the one in November, 1993 when Miami came to town and left with a 16-13 loss. The stadium had 76,000+ people in there, and as some CBS sports commentator cynically pointed out (Mussburger), on that day, Mountaneer Field was the largest city in West Virginia (Charleston has 62,000 people). WVU went 11-0 that year.

Above, Shupi (veku creche’!!!); Vije’s cousin, poses at the Mylan Puskar Center poses with her aunt (left) and her mother (right). My baby sister, Tendayi, has a kid called Chipo. My big brother also has a daughter called Shupi (the other graduat). When Chipo went to crèche, she met the Shupi above, and in order to differentiate the two Shupi’s, she called Shupi Mutambudzi ‘Shupi we ku Creche’… Shupi from the creche’). I started calling her Shupi veku Creche, and it stuck. Now Shupi is a graduate. Gives us a sobering idea of how old we all are. I am so proud of the fact that all these kids did well. To leave their comfort zone in Zimbabwe and come here (to the land of the free!) and succeed gives me a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This is the Mountaneer Field from inside the MPC. To think that I could have watched those games from the comforts of this enclosure instead of freezing my tail in the stands….. This is a very important piece for real estate in West Virginia. Last year, the (traitors) Virginia Tech Hokies came into Mountaneer Field ranked third nationally and left with a 27-7 spanking (a good old fashioned out-to-the-woodshed beating!!!). Vije was in the students’ section. When the game was over, she and a few thousands of her closest friends stormed the field to try to uproot the goal posts but they were sprayed with mace and tear gas by the police. I say to the police in Morgantown ‘lighten up!!!!’. At least a few couches were burnt on Grant Street.

WVU Mountaneers quarterbacks (left) and receivers (right) for the 2005/6 season. Gone is the remarkably talented Rasheed Marshall who broke Michael Vick’s rushing record and re-wrote the records books in many other categories. The team will also miss the outrageously talented receiver Chris Henry. He will do well in the pros. Let’s go Mountaneers!!! Win the Big East for the third time in a row!!

Daddy (proud father) and his three children. Left to right; Tsekwi, Effie and Vije. Remarkable, though (even with Tsekwi clowning, as usual!!!), they all look like me!!!! Aristotle was once quoted as saying ‘mothers are fonder of their children because they are more certain that they are their own’. To that, I say; Aristotle, eat you heart out!!!

The full picture of mother, father and the children. We all came over by boat (!!) from the old country in 1992. The kids adjusted well, and so did we, the parents. Mom successfully defended her doctoral thesis from University of Pittsburgh 2 weeks ago (now known as Dr. Priscah!)

There were several cousins and friends and well-wishers for Vije’s graduation. Such events do not occur too often. Some of the cousins include Joseph, Haku, Maininini Chido, Sekuru Dee Tatenda, Carl and Carl’s mother and Sekuru Ngoni (grandfather).

THE CEREMONY

The ceremony was held in the Coliseum, as usual. This was like déjà vu all over again… I was here exactly a year ago with Tsekwi graduating from MHS (see elsewhere on this website). This time we had two problems: the lighting was very poor, and I had a very lousy camera (more expensive than the one I had last time, but not as good… it could not take pictures from afar, and it had a poor recovery time after a flash. Tsekwi’s pictures with the older camera were much better. At least, before the ceremony started, we were serenaded by the university band with the famous song: ‘Country Roads, take me home, to the place, I belong, WEST VIRGINIA(!), Mountain Momma, take me home, Country Roads………’

This is the way the ‘Pit’ looked before the graduates filed in. The light was so dull. I could not understand why they made everything so dim.

The President, David Hardesty is shown on the Jumbotron giving a speech.

The convocation speaker was the governor of West Virginia. He gave a good speech (short!).

At some point, the Dean of the Davis School declared that Vije and her classmates were Graduates!!!! And that was it! I also had a doctoral student, Tabitha Chigwada, who graduated with a doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry. Her name was called out and she shook hands with the Prez! She defended her thesis on April 21, 2005.

We had a small ‘do for Tabitha after she successfully defended her thesis. Above is a picture of Tabitha and her two doctoral supervisors, Ken Showalter and myself.