We all have to start somewhere, like any other life cycle everyone has a beginning and an end.
Birth (baby crying and parents trying to soothe the child)
[Dad: Tiisetso, ke mo tea Tiisetso. Tiisesto, that’s his name) is a start, if you wish to summarise the ‘birds and the bees’ talk. Your first word, (Tiisetso: Dada…Papa) or mumble your parents make sense of. Speaking, (Tiisetso: Papa, tshwe-re ta-la) making use of the simplest of words, the only language you’ve heard around the house.
Then your first day at school…(kids crying for their parents because they don’t want to be left at school) and learning English- death by sentence construction (Tiisetso crying) (Tiisetso: He did hit me!) Primary school and then feeling yourself in Grade 7.
To the beginning of the rest of our lives- high school, (voice breaking) standardised tests and puberty. (Deep voice) All of these milestones have been building up to this moment. Class of 2016, raise your glass (glass clinking) to adventure, to love and to exploration. Today, as you enjoy your last meal (glass clinking) in this dining hall and share your last hugs, before you walk out the doors of this fine institution, one final time, I wish you safety on the seas you will sail and lands you will travel.
I bid you a farewell and a ‘Bon Voyage’- for this world is like no other-and I do not know when we shall meet again.
Tiisetso/Narrator: For moments that count, drink from glass.
{The speech is given by a young man maned Tiisetso through his years, from infancy to adulthood. The different milestones in his life are told by the voice he would’ve had at that age. So, it’s a timeline of his life and we hear him grown up through the variation in his voice, speech and tone.}