After finishing the Amy Biehl Memorial Concert at the university, we boarded the bus to visit the kiddies in the Amy Biehl Foundation after school programs in the township schools. If you want to know what a township is like, watch the movie Tsotsi.
First, we stopped at a bench dedication. The bench was all mosaic-ed up and bore the message, "Hit a woman, hit a rock." A group of young girls in the AB program had felt like they did not have a safe space at school. They worked with the counselors to build self-empowerment skills and co-opted a bench in their school to be for girls only. They then moved on to create this bench for the whole community. A speaker reported that many women from the community had visited this new bench today to show their support. My aunt Naomi was here in South Africa a week before me with her play on domestic violence. She would really like this.
Next, we walked across the street to the school. It looked like a pretty typical one-floor rural school, except unlike LAUSD, nothing was paved with asphalt. The grounds were covered with dirt or cement or grass or car-tire gardens. The buildings were arranged in a giant square pattern with a huge courtyard in the middle and smaller courtyards and gardens in the corners. The classrooms had chalkboards and some chart paper on the walls but were otherwise bare. In many rooms, the tables and chairs had been pushed to the side because the children were dancing.
Dancing, dancing, dancing! There was a lot of activity here! I don't know if they were all doing performances for us if this was their usual thing, but we did get to see a lot!
- Drumming and dancing in a classroom. I was peeking through the window at these talented kids. This rhythm and dancing thing is so enviable. You don't see it like this in America. It's an African thing.
- Marimba and dance performance in the main courtyard. This was really incredible. Tall skinny boys pounding on those marimbas, kids in pairs twirling and hopping and shaking and rockin all in unison. Man, can they dance! Bending the knees, bouncing up and down, shaking the butt, clapping and skipping. I could watch them all day. ACC dutifully stood in amazement, cameras help high to record.
- School choir. We practiced some of our songs with them, like "Lean on Me" and "Akheko." They will be singing with us at the Youth Spirit Awards. Then they sang their African songs on their own and it was awesome! Though not quite all on key, they had powerful voices and certain songs were accompanied but interesting dance moves. We did "Train" and they LOVED it. The boys in the back were echoing our "chuga chuga" as soon as we finished. Someone handed out all of our sheet music which seemed like the most generous gift in the world.
- Passing out friendship bracelets. What a hit!
- I got bored of the choir room, so I walked outside and joined a group of little girls doing chants and dances in the dirt courtyard. They did a version of "How Funky is Your Chicken" which also included the lines, "Hit your caboose" (that's where you slap your ass), "Turn your caboose" (that's where you twirl your ass around in a slow circle), and "Shake your caboose" (that's where you pump your ass in and out as you get closer and closer to the ground). None of this was sexual in any way, just fun dancing. The girls were delighted that I could shake my butt along with them. Then we did a name chant in which you spell your name and the group shouts out something in Xhosa. I love these girls and wish I could spend the whole afternoon with them. Maybe I need to go back to teaching elementary school?
I think everybody was really sad when it was time to get back on the bus.
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