Junior Senior Banquet

So this weekend was the junior senior banquet at Hillcrest. The banquet is sort of a prom equivalent, but banquet is a lot classier than the prom I went to. Every year the 11^th grade students put it together as sort of a farewell gesture to the graduating class. They get one of the nicer restaurants in town to cater it and have some of the underclassmen serve everyone. Everyone dresses up really nice and spends quite a bit of time getting ready for it.

Now that you have the background, I can tell you my person experience with the banquet. Gabe, my boyfriend, asked me with a song a few weeks ago; so we went as a couple. Mr. Cunningham, one of the teachers at Hillcrest, is a chaperone for the event and asked Emily to go with him. Sterling was recruited as a server. The three eldest of the Mitchell kids ended up being at the event.

I actually spent two nights away from home because the banquet is on a Friday. I spent Thursday night at the house of Penelope Tait, one of my friends from school. We did as much towards getting ready as we could. That included nails and straightening Penny’s hair. She has really curly hair so it was quite an ordeal, but it turned out really nice. The next day we only had a half day at school to give everyone time to get ready. After school I went with a group of girls to go out to eat for lunch and then we got ready together.

The banquet itself was really cool. The junior class had made it a Hollywood theme and had gone to great lengths to make everything perfect. They even had a red carpet and a Hollywood sign, and that was just the outside. The inside looked like the Oscars. I couldn’t believe that I was still in Nigeria. Each person had a seat reserved for them. At the end of the night there was even an awards ceremony at which every senior got a little golden person for either they’re participation in the senior play or their participation in sports. After the actual banquet was over all the juniors and seniors went to the Niger Creek hostel for the after party that lasted all night. It was a really cool experience.

Senior Trip in Ghana

So this past week I got back from my senior trip. Senior trip is a trip that the senior class takes together every year over spring break. In years past, the class would just go somewhere in Nigeria, but for the past ten years or so the classes have vacationed in places outside of the country. This year the class went to Ghana. Originally we were realistically looking to go somewhere like Gambia or Dubai (I don’t know if I spelled that right and I’m too tired to look it up, haha) but because of some bad decisions on the school’s part and the economy crash, we only made it as far as Ghana.

However, as disappointing as it was that we had to go to Ghana like all the classes before us, we still had a lot of fun on the trip. Most of the time was spent getting to where we wanted to go but it was fun. All the bus trips definitely gave the class time to bond with each other. We spend a night in Abuja so that we could catch our early flight in the morning. Then we spent a night in Accra, Ghana after coming in on an early afternoon flight. In Accra we got lots of time to shop and enjoy the slightly more developed society of Ghana. From what I saw, Ghana is still West Africa, but with a few more western influences. Anyways, from Accra we went on to some random little vacation spot called Big Milly’s. That was nice for the girls, but all the guys got crammed into one room so they didn’t enjoy it much. But since I only had 4 roommates, I liked it. Plus, the beach was amazing. I swam pretty much the whole two days that we were there. Then we went on to another fancier resort called Coconut Grove. On the way we went on a tree walk thing and saw an old slave castle called Elmina, both of which were pretty cool. But Coconut Grove itself was really nice. There was a nice pool and I got to eat Calamari for the first time in however many months. It was sweet. Then coming home we stayed in Accra and Abuja again.

But overall, the trip was definitely worth it. It was some free time to just cut loose and enjoy everyone in the class.

Hannah