When the last person leaves the morning graduation session at UWC, Margaret Van Wyk kicks off her shoes, picks up a broom, and gets to work. Fondly known on campus as Aunty Margie, she is the Metro Cleaning Services supervisor and the woman who is in charge of preparing the Jakes Gerwel Hall for the Graduation Sessions.
Autumn Graduation is a week of daily graduation ceremonies, a morning session that starts at 9:30 and an afternoon session that begins at 14:30. In between, Van Wyk and her team have to spruce up the entire space so that when guests and graduands arrive, the hall is sparkling. She said: “We are a small team. On a good day, six people do the clean-up, and we do it in less than an hour.”
The floors, the seating, and everything in between need their attention, from sweeping to mopping and lots of wiping down. Van Wyk doesn’t stop to chat. She always has her eye on her cleaning crew, and she has to pitch in and lead the line.
From the back of the hall, a colleague shouts to her that they found a baby’s shoe. Van Wyk is on the stage, and she motions to them to bring it to her. “We find all kinds of things here,” she said.
Running through the list of found items, she laughs when recalling some instances in the past. Water bottles, earrings, and bracelets are at the top of the list of items left behind in the hall after graduation sessions. As a result of the adrenaline rush, sometimes graduates leave their diplomas and degrees behind.
“Some days, so many people leave their handbags behind. I take the bags and line them up here on the side of the stage, and as they come back, I just tell them kyk maar daar vir jou bag (just look over there for your bag).”
Half an hour later, a colleague from Campus Protection Services steps into the hall to collect the items the team has found.
There are 1280 chairs in the Jakes Gerwel Hall, 860 of which are red plastic chairs. Van Wyk explains that the team from Infrastructure and Engineering ensures that the upholstered seats are cleaned.
“The plastic chairs we wash and clean ourselves,” she said. Preparing the hall for the first graduation session is a coordinated task; maintaining the hall throughout the week of graduation takes even more elbow grease.
Van Wyk explains that they have a tiny window to clean between sessions.
“The Registrar’s team waits for us. As soon as we are done, they start putting down the graduation booklets and the students' names on the seats. Ons speel nie hier nie (We don’t play around here),” she said.
She suddenly motions to a colleague to bring the mop, and then shuffles out off the stage with her broom and bag filled with rubbish. Van Wyk and her team prepare the hall with precision effort and by her own admission lots of pride.
WATCH: A time-lapse video of preparations for Graduation in the Jakes Gerwel Hall
