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!