Non-marimba?

Well, this post will mostly be dedicated to the non-marimba activities that I have filled my life with here in Cape Town! Although I started off this project full of marimba ambitions, I have found that there is simply too much music and culture here to ignore the rest of it... and yet again, I have discovered how completely ignorant I am. It turns out that most musicians here don't play just one instrument... they play marimba and also drum, or steel pans, or mbira, and so on. The result? Being only a marimba player in this music culture has made me feel a bit less worthy in the world of African music! And my classical background is only marginally helpful in restoring my reputation :).

Last week (edit: two or three weeks ago) I spent a lot of time tutoring English and Math at Sithembele Matiso Senior Secondary School in Nyanga township.


My learners are the most lovely group of kids, they are in 11th Grade and they have some, but not lots, of English. Each one of them has this thirst to learn, though! They really try to catch each bit of information that you throw out to them. This makes it a bit ironic that most of the exam texts that we read are about how English language is the key to passing exams, getting ahead in life, etc. And the rest are about other "cultural" problems. Sometimes it's like everyone is afraid to use the word "race," even when it is warranted to describe a particular problem in the townships... and even on this blog post, I hesitated before writing it because you never know when someone will take your words and twist them in a way you didn't intend. Anyway, these learners are lovely. And they start their year-exams at the beginning of next week, so they needed all the extra boost they could get from us!

This past few weeks I have attended steel drum lessons run by a wonderful man named David Wickham. He heads up the Steelband Project, which is an organization that both teaches and performs on the steel pans. Apparently, the steel pan is another instrument that is attributable to the infamous Tracey family. I got to meet Andrew Tracey last week, he was in Cape Town to check out the Steelband Project and I chatted with him for a while. I am hoping to set up a visit with him at Grahamstown University later in the year to see his collection of African musical instruments and check out the International Library of African Music.

Anyway, the Steelband Project is doing great things. The rehearsals that I attend are bands of underprivileged youth--one group is part of a catholic youth project that takes in students off the streets, and the other is a group of kids from Langa, the oldest (and most musical) township in Cape Town.

These photos are of the street youth playing steel pans... they get so into it! And it's a very different sort of thing from the marimba. When kids play marimba they get excited because they are moving and hitting a big instrument and making lots of sound. The steelpans are much more delicate, so when these kids enjoy their rehearsals it is really the music itself that they're enjoying. Very cool to see!

The steel pan is constructed in the conventional manner for mallet instruments. Instead of having a linear pitch/space relationship, with adjacent notes sounding adjacent pitches in the scale, the steelpan pitches progress around the circle of fifths. This makes a lot of sense in terms of chord patterns and progressions, but it sure wreaks havoc on my melodic brain! I have played a bit at a few of the lessons and I was completely terrible at it until my brain shifted over to "circle of fifths mode." Regardless, it was quite fun.

I also spent a morning picking the brain of my drumming instructor from the drum circles that I attend in Observatory every week, Patrick Dilley. I went to his flat to look at some drums (which I have a beeeeeaaaauuuutiful one of now! See my photo below!) and we ended up talking music and drumming and musicians and Africa for the whole morning! It was very instructive to get inside his head and hear what he thought about the musicians in the area. Apparently there is a problem with integrity and loyalty in South Africa... any musician who sees an opportunity grabs it, whether it means switching to a rival company and disregarding years of training and assistance or even moving overseas. Makes sense to me, actually, but it still blows for him. I got to play on his balafon while I was there... it's a West African marimba-like instrument with gourd resonators. It was a beautiful instrument but the pentatonic scale really threw me a curve ball. I couldn't seem to find any melodies that were compatible! Too bad, really... but maybe I'll just have to travel to Ghana and get some training :).

A few weekends ago I went to the famed Castle of Good Hope. Actually, it's not really famed at all... it's just a castle in the middle of the city. But it was worth the visit, if only to get the view from the walls. I really enjoyed the museums on the Castle grounds and I might go back to take one of their guided tours. It's one of those places where there's not much to see but there's a great deal of history that makes the sights more interesting. That Sunday we went out to drive a beautiful road called the Franschoek Bus. The road goes out around Franschoek and through some gorgeous scenery. It was a cold day, so it felt nice to be warm and cozy in the car. We even got snowed on for a few minutes! It was very slushy snow, though.

Since then I've also been on a tour of the Winelands outside of Cape Town. The wine industry here is flourishing, but I think it is still trying to find it's identity. Unlike most wine regions, there is no specialty wine that is grown in each region. Instead, all the wineries simply pick a few to specialize in. That means there is a wide range of wine tasting available to a tourist here, but it makes me wonder what grape really grows best here, or if the microclimate of each farm is really so different that you can grow anything you want in different areas. Somehow, I think that as the wine industry matures here in the Western Cape there will be a specialty emerging. We had a good time on the wine tour, but the weren't stunning. Many of the reds from the region are too fruity for my taste and the whites too... tasteless. But there were also some jewels hidden in between... the Pinotage is very nice from some of the farms and I had a wonderful Mourvedre. Anyhow, it was a nice tour!

Goodness... there is still so much more to say and I am out of energy to type it. So I think I will leave the rest for another post... which will come soon, I promise!

Smile and Say Hello

I was thinking today that it has been quite a while since I posted to this blog in leisure... so perhaps it is time for me to share some of my ponderings.

For quite some time I have been thinking about the simple poverty of the wonderful people that surround me. And more than that, I have been thinking about the blindness that is bred into the wealthy so they don't see a problem in their fellow South Africans' way of life. And yet, despite this divide, there is such politeness here, such manners. There is a wonderful sense of respect and propriety. Not everyone carries this sensibility, but the good seem to outnumber the bad. Even when you encounter a beggar on the street, he or she will start by saying something incredibly polite, "excuse me, lady, but may I ask you a question?" The contradictory nature of this question is a bit comical if you think about it, but still--very polite.

amaAmbush Marimbas is located in the Azaad Independent Youth Services Center in District Six. Now, for those of you who have not been to Cape Town, District Six is an area just outside the city center where a township community was brutally evicted. Because of the racism and terror that are a part of South Africa's past, this site has become a memorial to the problems facing the country. Much of the district remains open land, grassy space with the remnants of paved roads in places, but it isn't really cared for by anyone. There is a rickety wooden sign as you walk past one of these grassy areas notifying the public that this site has been selected for a memorial park to commemorate the struggle. The sign reads "A nation of people, not races" and everyday I think about how the sign's state of disrepair erodes its real message. But I have been distracted from my original purpose in describing District Six. The area itself is not very safe because there is all this open land--meaning no houses or shops. Across the road on my walk to work is the City Campus of Cape Peninsula University of Technology, but it doesn't really improve the safety of the area because it is simply a long fence from the street I commute on.

When you meet someone on the road in this area, you take a good look at them. Most of the time when I don't trust someone walking towards me I simply cross the road and take myself out of their way. But sometimes you get so caught up in being cautious and mistrusting people. I know that every now and then I simply need to remind myself that the good people outnumber the bad ones and that all I really need to do is keep smiling and saying hello to the people who deserve a bit of kindness.

The other day I met someone who completely backed up this belief. I was walking away from Azaad when I was overtaken on the sidewalk by a dark-skinned man pushing a toddler in a small stroller. The first thing I thought of was, 'is this a gimmick? Is he going to mug me while I'm thinking how cute his boy is?' Instead of an undercover mugger, he turned out to be a very nice man named Matthew. He first said hello and asked me about Azaad, as he had just seen the students leaving for the day and was curious about the center. Now, Azaad is run-down enough that I think anyone would be curious about it after seeing loads of teenagers leaving... it just doesn't look nice enough to be a university. But anyway, we started chatting about Azaad and he asked me what I taught there. So the conversation turned to the marimba and we talked about traditional music and Zimbabwean music, and it turns out that he has family in Zim. And then he asked me what I was doing in SA and I asked about his family, and in the end we had a very nice chat. Surprisingly, he even offered to give me the address of his family in Zimbabwe so that I would have a safe place to stay if I visited. What a nice guy! And I was worried about being mugged.

Now, for those of you who are worried that I will be jumping into a car to race off to Zimbabwe with a guy I hardly know, don't fret! I am (surprisingly) a bit smarter than that. But I think it's an excellent example of the kindness that exists here on an everyday basis. It's so different than back home, where we never would have had that conversation at all, and certainly not ended it with such a generous offer.

Azaad offers another example of the daily kindness of South Africans in the most unlikely place! My students are rough characters there, but they are so polite to me. Even though sometimes they're typical teenagers and talking during your explanations or joking around in the corridors, they will still turn around and say hello when I approach, ask me how I'm doing, or offer to hold the door. Now, perhaps that's because I'm a marimba teacher and not an English or Math teacher, but I think it is because these students understand the concept of respect. Even when they don't act respectfully towards you, they at least know what they're doing... although that doesn't make disrespectful behavior any less disrespectful!

Everyone I have talked to at Azaad worries about how I will cope with the classes. It's funny, really, because I haven't really had any serious trouble with them at all. Over and over, teachers, marimba folks, the cooks, caretakers, etc. tell me that these students are "a rough bunch" and ask me how it's going for me--in such a tone of concern. Maybe they think I can't handle the gangsters... and maybe I can't. But the wonderful part about it is that the students themselves take care of me too. I don't know how I have managed to come off as a delicate little thing, but my students really try to help me by managing their unruly peers and letting me know when someone's trying to pull a fast one on me. The classes I get are almost always engaged by the marimba, with at most a few that are indifferent musicians or troublemakers. And the ones that are really involved understand that the screw-ups only take away from their chance to play and learn marimba. I don't think that any of them will ever read this blog, but I hope that they know how much I respect them for having the guts to stand up to their peers. That is the hardest thing to teach back home...and I know that helping me with a class isn't the same as holding up to peer pressure involving gangs or drugs or anything, but it is a step in the right direction. Maybe it is my youth that makes them want to help me. Maybe it's that I'm short, female, white, blonde-ish, etc... but whatever it is, I sure appreciate their help and respect them for it.

Every now and then I will meet a random person on the street who turns out to be absolutely wonderful, and it will remind me to have a bit more faith in people. Although safety is a concern here, I think we can get too caught up in it. Do you ever wonder if the people you meet on the side of the road can tell what you're thinking? Sometimes I wonder what my face is telling people. When I squint in the sunlight, do I look stressed or afraid of them? When I'm tired, do I look arrogant or bored? You never know when the person you encounter on the road might be a mugger, but you also never know who they are at all. Maybe that person will grow up to cure cancer or AIDS. Maybe they will be the next Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. You can't know if they deserve your inadvertant glower or grimace, so why not smile and say hello?

Townships, teaching, marimbas, and more!

Well, it has yet again been a busy few weeks for me here in Cape Town!! I have finally nailed down my travel plans (more or less) so I am leaving by bus close to the end of this month for Gabarone, Botswana. For those of you who, like myself, are confounded by the pronunciation of that name, the "Gab" is said almost as an "Hab" sound... very gutteral and deep in the throat. Then the "rone" is sort of like "rhone-ay" if that helps. Maybe it is more confusing... but I spent so long trying to get it right that I feel the need to record the pronunciation in some form on this blog!

Last week on Monday it was a public holiday in South Africa--technically it was "Heritage Day" but there was a double designation (potentially unofficial) as "National Braai Day" which was much more exciting to the general populace. None of the South Africans that I know could tell me how you were supposed to celebrate "Heritage Day" but they did know how to gather around a Braai (a barbecue over a wood fire). So my house full of internationals had a full-blown Braai in our tiny backyard... and since none of my housemates had the benefit of several years' camping experience to guide them in building a suitable cooking fire the task fell to me. Several hours later I smelled of both campfire and meat grease... not my favorite combination! But I do enjoy tending a fire. The funny thing about this holiday was that it set off a rash of braaiing among my housemates. They have now been to either three or four braais in the last week and a half... and they always want me to tend the fire! Luckily I was able to duck out after the second one. As a vegetarian, I get tired of cooking loads of meat for others :).

Tuesday was exciting because I got to work in the amaAmbush marimba building workshop, helping to finish up a double set of marimbas to be delivered to a local prison for a new band. I mostly did detail work: pasting letter labels onto keys, installing a few screws and rubber grommets, and stringing the finished instruments.


It was very interesting to get inside the workshop like this because it is a very different process from the way we build marimbas back home. And the instruments themselves are different (as you can see from the photos) so it was nice to get a chance to examine them in detail at various stages of the assembly process. Next I hope to get a chance to speak with the folks that make the keys for amaAmbush and talk to Greg (who has been described to me as the mastermind behind the company) about the design process behind the instruments amaAmbush manufactures.

Things just kept coming last week--which is a good thing! So I'm taking this one day at a time :). Wednesday I taught a marimba lesson to a beginning-intermediate group of kids at the French School here in Cape Town. They were cute little buggers, and did in fact speak some (if not perfect) English. The lesson was a bit hectic because the venue was a very warm gymnasium and the kids were both overheated and over-energetic. Also, these kids didn't have the same instinctive grasp of music that I have encountered among most of the groups I've worked with. For once, they were having problems similar to most US kids with rhythm and finding a "lock" with the other parts. I tried to teach a bit of Nyungwe (sp?) but they found it more difficult than I expected. I get to teach another lesson to them this week and I am looking forward to it. I hope it all goes well!

On Thursday I went out to the Philippi township to attend a celebration at one of the SAEP-supported Creches. A Creche is a sort-of preschool mixed with daycare that is provided at very low cost to the community. The kids range from 0-6 in age and are completely adorable. They don't speak more than ten words of English, but they are so expressive! The faces on these kids are just hysterical when they're excited about something.



The Noluthando Creche was celebrating the completion of a new building and toilet block to supplement the tiny government-building they'd started with years ago, and it was a lovely event.


The toilet block is the silver building on the left side, and the red building is also brand new.

We planted trees to symbolize the major donors for the new construction and listened to the children sing the National Anthem. Then e all had some lunch (prepared that morning by some of us from SAEP) and played with the children a bit before heading off home.




The whole event was lovely, and it was so motivating to meet some of the Creche mothers who had basically built the whole project from scratch with their passion and ambition as the main ingredients. SAEP works with nine Creches, and not all of them are nearly so well looked-after these days. It's a combination of SAEP resources and creche cooperation that really makes a difference.

Friday I taught marimba all day at Azaad (see photo of the center below... doesn't it look like a prison?) with one of the drum teachers from amaAmbush, Zama. It was a pretty fun day, but not all that different from my previous work there so I won't go into it in great detail. I'm going back this week to work with the same group of students, so maybe we'll get started on a real song this time!!


Friday night Julia Bradley-Cook was in town from Windhoek with one of her work-buddies and I got to take them around to the waterfront for some dinner and dessert--altogether a nice night! We also went out in Observatory the next night with a few folks staying at her hostel but the night wasn't anything special because we were all so tired! Julia had spent the day touring and had an early flight back to Windhoek on Sunday and I was just come off of a long day of marimba at the Diemersfontein winery in Stellenbosch with the amaAmbush performing band, so we had a pretty chill night and called it fairly early.

The marimba gig Saturday was out at this incredibly gorgeous winery... I just couldn't believe how picturesque it was.

The gig itself was interesting... it was titled "Pinotage on Tap" and was a day full of live music and free-flowing wine. Each guest was gifted a provisions bag upon entry with a sandwich and a wine glass, and there were wine barrels tapped all over the winery where you could just walk up and fill your glass any time you liked. Of course, being the entertainment we weren't allowed to drink until after our performance, but it was a fun day and nice wine at the end of it. amaAmbush was hired on to perform as a "welcoming" band as the guests arrived as well as taking a half-hour spot as the warm-up band for Prime Circle, a big name in local music here. I enjoyed the whole day--I wasn't actually performing but I got to take photos and video, listen to good music, and chill with the marimba band during the down time. Altogether a good education!

Whew! If you're still reading you deserve a medal. I'm only through one week's worth of activities and still going. So this week... Sunday evening we went to watch South Africa cream the US in a Rugby match. Unfortunately, this match was actually held in France, but it was certainly interesting to watch it in a pub filled with South Africans! Rugby is still a "white" sport here, as opposed to Soccer which is mainly a "black" sport, but still they are very good on the world stage and get a lot of national attention.

Monday morning a few of us from SAEP took Joe Ballard from the Clinton School of Public Service into the townships to have a look at our highschools and creches. The Clinton School is a potential source of volunteers for SAEP so we wanted to give Joe the fullest understanding of our program that we could, and it was interesting even for me to get toured around the schools by the principals. Each one of the principals identified a different problem as the "main roadblock" for the school, and it was really interesting to note the diversity in discipline, organization, and facilities in the set of schools. Many of the schools that we visited were much nicer than the schools I am generally working in, so I got a bit of an education myself!

This photo is of Nyanga, the township that most of our schools are in.

This photo is a typical shack/house in Nyanga. Most of the learners I work with live in conditions like this.

Today (I can't believe I've made it so far in one sitting on this post!) I went out to Sithembele Matiso Senior Secondary School to tutor English again to the Grade 11s. We haven't been out there for several weeks because of mock-exams and the school holidays, but it was nice to see the learners again. They are getting to know me enough that we have personal relationships and they are so motivated! We had a relatively small group today because the trip was put together mid-day, but it was a wonderful lesson. I am hoping to go out again on Thursday because the students have exams in two weeks and they need all the last-minute help they can get. The students tried to teach me a few Xhosa words today, but I think I have forgotten them already! I am trying to learn them one-by-one... but I am terrible at language so it is a slow process for me.

But, I do know how to say "nkosi!" which means "thanks!" for reading my blog! I hope all is well back home!