Rising Hope

The one-month anniversary of my departure was on Thursday, and it was certainly one of my lowest points so far. At that point, every marimba prospect that I had in the works was either stalled or defunct... Oscar Mpetha Secondary School no longer has a band, another band was in Germany, and my interactions with amaAmbush were two-weeks stale. In fact, I was pretty much convinced that the only thing I was learning about on my Watson was how to fail. But I think that this was perhaps one day too early for me to be despairing--or maybe the despair is itself and integral part of the Watson experience--because beginning early Friday morning things began to come together at a surprising rate.

Oscar Mpetha's marimba coordinator agreed to meet with me on Monday about starting up a new set of learners on the instruments (although the instruments themselves may need some repairing), and I am hoping for that connection to be relatively quick to start up as well as being reliable. Second, my housemate Akibu from Nigeria invited me along to an event he was helping with on Saturday (today) involving at least some Nigerian drumming and dancing. And third, I heard back from amaAmbush about plans for next week. So, all-in-all, I feel like the victim of some terrible coincidences timing-wise, but I'm very happy that there seem to be prospects again.

Isn't it funny how life works in waves and cycles? I feel like I've been bouncing back and forth between excitement and disappointment constantly since I've been here. As a consequence, though, I am feeling less naive than at the outset. But I suppose that is the recent disappointment talking :).

I attended the drumming/dancing event with my housemate Akibu this morning as planned, but it turned out to be somewhat different than I had expected. Akibu speaks English with a strong accent (to my ears... but mine's probably equally difficult for him!) so I hadn't really inquired about all the details of the event. It was a group of South African high school students that are in the process of creating a musical production centered around societal issues of inequality and abuse in township life. The students are a culturally diverse subset of a larger, city-sponsored student organization studying these issues and trying to help the students rise above this destructive sort of culture.

Anyhow, the group is in the early stages of creating this musical, and in the brainstorming process they are doing vocal exercises, drama workshops, and lots of musical activities that focus on group bonding and skill development. During part of the session, Akibu led a few of the students in drumming and then taught simple Nigerian dancing to the rest of us. Although I felt silly doing it, I joined in and had a good time. I can attend again next week if I choose to, and I think I will do it if my schedule permits. Even though it is not marimba, I am interested in how this group is using music and the arts to focus their energies in a positive manner. Their lessons were quite fun today, but sorry, no pictures! Maybe next week :).

What else is in the news? Well, Akibu also cooked the house some Nigerian dishes for supper last night--which was definitely the first time I had tried any! He made a mashed bean dish that was tasty, though difficult to make out the ingredients, and that was eaten with fried bananas and boiled potatoes. I suppose it doesn't actually sound all that exotic the way I am describing it here, but I was pleasantly surprised at the flavors.

So life here promises to be a bit more active than it has been, and I am certainly going to begin pursuing other options if my current set prove to be less exciting than I had hoped. I have just learned that Blogger has added video uploads to their blog options, but I didn't bring my cable with me to upload anything, so that will have to wait for later. In the meantime, since I feel bad leaving you all without any pictures at all, here's a photo of Observatory, the suburb I am living in :).