In Cape Town during the winter months the weather is extremely sporadic. In the morning you could wake up and not see a cloud in the sky and then an hour later you could be going to your volunteer placement in the pouring rain.
After a weekend of nothing but rain, Monday, September 21st was a blessing. The sun was out and it felt like spring was coming. I came into my placement feeling rejuvenated from the weather and ready to teach the rest of "And So It Goes" to my group. Before I got there I thought about all the times I was in high school and college choir where we sat inside practicing music while we were missing the gorgeous weather. It was always a big distraction, especially when you were practicing a huge piece like Handel's Messiah. I decided I was going to change that today and have a choir rehearsal outside in the middle of a township. Now how many people can say they've done that!?
We set up the chairs outside behind the JL Zwane center and started listening to "And So It Goes". Everyone seemed to enjoy the change in scenery and I think it helped everyone learn the piece quicker. Shortly into the rehearsal, I was able to pick out soloists and at that point the group had already learned most if not all the song. It was a fun and productive day. when I came back to the home base I told the other volunteers about my outdoor rehearsal and they all seemed to enjoy my story.
The next day I was scheduled to stay at the home base to work on marketing for the group. I've been trying to set up an internet EPK for Siyaya on a website called www.sonicbids.com. An EPK is an Electronic Press Kit. It's a web link you can send to promoters, booking agents and other people to help promote your music group. The link takes you to a page that has bio information, pictures, streaming audio mp3s, and video footage. A lot of people use EPKs now-a-days to try and book shows at venues all around the country. If you're a new group trying to make it in music, EPKs are a very useful tool. I was having trouble once again with the internet and uploading anything on to their page seemed to be a big challenge. Again it seemed that technology would the major obstacle I would need to overcome.
That evening we were celebrating one of the volunteers' birthdays. Jenna was turning 22 and we all decided to go to a Mexican restaurant nearby called "Panchos". Everyone came from our group and it was a blast. Jenna even got a happy birthday phone call from one of our drivers, Wonga who lives in Guguletu.
The next day I was preparing to finish teaching my group "And So It Goes", but I was in for a completely different surprise. I got into the JL Zwane center at my normal time around 8am and usually I have to wait for about an hour before everyone arrives. It's just the way it works. The drivers take everyone to their placements at 7:45am and mainly everyone starts at 8 or 8:30am, but for me I have to wait. No big deal though, I always bring my 700 page book about modern African politics so you know it's a good slow read. Anyways, I was waiting for people to show up and at around 9:15am I realized that no one had come in yet. I didn't know what was going on and no one else in the building knew either. I called Bongani and he sounded very busy with a lot going on around him. He said that most of the members were at HIV/AIDS workshops to spruce up their education. He had to go and told me he would call back in 15 minutes. Just like clockwork he called back and told me that Bolo, one of the Siyaya members was coming to pick me up. I agreed and hung up, but in reality I had no idea where I was going and what was going on. I assumed that I would be attending the workshop, but that was not the case at all. I was actually going to be attending a rehearsal for the 31st Annual Loerie Awards. The Loerie awards is a huge deal in South Africa. It's like the Grammys for the best marketing companies and marketing campaigns in South Africa. People all over come for it and there are live music acts including one of South Africa's hottest funk/house/rock groups called "Goldfish". You might not recognize the name, but they blew up internationally due to a Kia car commercial for the new Kia Seoul. The commercial has four hampsters crusing in the car blasting Goldfish while many other hampsters are on the road, but they are caught in their hamster running wheels while the other hampsters roll past them in the Kia Seoul. Goldfish was going to be one of the performing artists at the award show and they needed a back up choir for one of their songs. Bongani had been in touch with a coordinator from the Loerie awards several weeks ago and they had arranged for his 40 person African choir (made up many of the Siyaya members) to perform with Goldfish.
It was an amazing opportunity for 40 kids from the townships to come out and perform in such a glamorous venue and with such a reputable rock group. Bolo and I drove up to the Cape of Good Hope Center in downtown Cape Town where the award show was to be held. At the rehearsal all sorts of stage set up preparations were going in place. The place was plastered with sponsor posters like Heineken, Postnet, etc. It looked like it was going to be a crazy event. The band came out and introduced themselves. They were all really cool and I got to talk to some of members and audio tech people. The rehearsal went very well and everybody seemed excited for the Saturday performance.
After the rehearsal we had more things to take care of that I didn't know about. At this point in my journey I'm very use to the idea of spontaneous schedules and just going along with the flow. Our next task was to go to the Cape Peninsula Institute of Technology for a Siyaya performance. They were performing in a Heritage day festival. Heritage day is a national holiday that was happening tomorrow (Thursday), but the school was celebrating through out the entire week. It's a holiday where people celebrate their cultural heritage by dressing in traditional African clothes and have many traditional musical performances. Siyaya was one of the main acts and I have to say they blew all of the other performances away! Using my digital camera I recorded many of the dance and music numbers they performed. A lot of their entertainment portions of their repertoire are complex dance numbers with extravagant costumes. They had a large audience and I met many of the coordinators of the performance as I introduced myself as the publicist for Siyaya (ha!). After the performance Bongani drove me home and we discussed ideas for marketing both Siyaya and his choir. I now have a lot of footage that I will be burning to cds and giving to Bongani to show to promoters.
Thursday was supposed to be our day off to Heritage, but once again I had to run off with Bongani for the next rehearsal with Goldfish. Today I was picked up in a large van filled with members of the choir. The van could maybe fit 10 people, but of course they manage to stuff 15 in it. A lot of the times I'm pretty quiet in the van, because all of the members speak in their native language "Xhosa", which I know very little of. I do enjoy listening to them speak, because they all have such colorful personalities and seem to really enjoy each others company. The really remarkable part of drive to rehearsal was the fact that the group took up most of the time by rehearsing pieces that they were learning in their Choir. This is once again a testament to their love for music. The way they sang together in a stuffed van really showed how much they love the music they perform. Nobody was using an ipod or reading a book they were just singing their hearts out and I loved every minute of it.
We arrived at the center and this time they rehearsed on the main stage, which was a very colorful set up. There were large screens behind the performers where they ran music videos during the performance. I also managed to sneak in some footage of the rehearsal even though in retrospect I probably wasn't suppose to. It looked like it was going to be an amazing experience, unfortunately I wasn't going to be able to attend the performance being that there were no left over tickets.
After the rehearsal we once again had to run for another Siyaya Heritage day performance, but this time it was in Guguletu at the sports complex. It's always an experience to go into the townships and walk around. Mainly because everytime I go around I'm the only white person within miles and everyone around you is definitely taking notice. I really don't mind it at all and since I'm with the people in my group I feel safe. I also love talking to the people to get their views on everything that happens in South Africa. Siyaya gave a great performance that had a couple mess ups, but nothing too huge. We stuck around for some of the other performances, which were some dance numbers given by middle and elementary school children and then a hip hop group made up of South African teenagers that really got people dancing. It was another packed day for me while all the other volunteers had the day off, but I didn't mind.
By Friday I finished teaching "And So It Goes". I told the group about the significance of the piece to me and about Katie. I told them that Katie's family was very honored to hear that they were performing the piece, which was very inspiring for them. Bongani listened to Siyaya perform the piece and I was really happy to hear that they all had the piece down and they were already teaching it to the other members in the choir. I'm really excited to hear them perform the piece.
The last thing I want to mention in this blog is that another one of my fellow volunteers Tyler Eversaul aka "Ty Guy" has left after 8 weeks. Ty was one of my roommates from the beginning and he was a really nice guy, full of energy, and personality. He definitely made an impact, as everyone still talks about him even after he left. This blog is dedicated to him for keeping a smile on all of our faces when he was around. "Thanks Ty Guy, we'll miss you!"
Thanks everybody for reading this weeks edition of Kevin Tackles South Africa! It's been a crazy journey so far and I only have 2 more weeks of volunteering to go. If you haven't heard by now, after I'm done volunteering I'll be doing a 20 day trip around Southern Africa. I will be starting From Cape Town and then going to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It's through a very reputable tourist agency called Detour Africa that does many of these trips, so don't worry about me going out all by myself! One of the other volunteers did the trip before volunteering and said it was amazing so I decided to pursue it. This means I'll be coming home on October 31st.
Thanks again everyone and keep sending your comments!!
Kevin Gschwend
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Week #7 - Cape Town Revival
On the afternoon of Friday, September 11th the 5 Robertson volunteers and I drove back to Cape Town. It was very interesting that Robertson had such a large impact on us when we only spent 2 weeks there. I think many of us agreed that it was the people who really made the impact on our stay and not necessarily the city of Robertson itself.
As we saw Table Mountain in the distance I could feel an overwhelming sense of relief. I really felt for once like I was coming back to a home that I had not seen for a long time. Although Cape Town isn't as peaceful as Robertson, it has so many other qualities that make it so memorable. In that way Cape Town seems more like a place to stay then a place to get away from, but that's just the opinion of someone who has been living in South Africa for 7 weeks.
Although I was excited about coming back I was also pretty nervous. Unfortunately we were not coming back to the same Cape Town we once knew. Our homebase in Rondebosch was no longer a CCS residence. We were now moving into homebase 1 in Rosebank where a whole new group of volunteers had arrived the day we left for Robertson. It's not always easy to meet new people, especially when those people have already been acquainted with their own group for 2 weeks. I also had my own friendships established with the people that I originally came to Cape Town with. In that way I was just as much at risk for judgement of others.
Meeting this new group was another experience that opened my eyes to what else has been so wonderful about the Cross-Cultural Solutions program. The idea that people would pay to go to another country and do volunteer work for free really says a lot about the character of those individuals. I didn't realize this until meeting the next group of volunteers. There were about 13 new volunteers that were living in the CCS house in Rosebank. Again they were from all over including California, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Scotland. Even at the first moment we walked through the door we were greeted with many smiling faces asking us questions about our experience in Cape Town. For once I felt like I was the knowledgeable and cultured individual from Cape Town. It was a good feeling, but more than that it was good to feel like the individuals that you were living with were happy to have you among their group even after they established their bond. Finally, they all seem to really enjoy their volunteer work and had the same enthusiasm to be in South Africa.
On Monday, September 15th I was extremely excited about returning to my placement in Guguletu. I came into the JL Zwane center to everyone coming up and giving me hugs and asking how my journey was in Robertson. I showed them pictures and brought chocolate as a welcome back present. Warning to anyone who does volunteer work in South Africa: Make sure you bring enough for everyone if you decide to bring food to your place of work. It eventually worked out where everyone got a piece of chocolate, but man I thought people were going to kill each other for one of the bars of Toblerone. That day they had a concert going on for a little over 100 primary school kids at the JL Zwane Center. The concert involved an intense message about HIV/AIDS awareness. The concert was also to be attended by 4 major representatives from South Africa's largest insurance company. The company was looking to sponsor Siyaya in some of their performances and programs. It was a very important day so I stayed longer than usual to help set up and break down the show. Once again Siyaya put on a dazzling performance that had the students up and dancing like they were at a rock concert. During the encores Ntutu a soloist in the group brought some of the kids up to have dance competitions. This was definitely not planned for, but the kids loved every minute of it. It was a very emotional day with me coming back and seeing the group again, but also because they gave such a memorable performance.
Although the week started off well, a lot problems arose throughout. I began to move away from working on music with the group to working on promotion. I tried to give myself a set schedule where I would work on researching venues for Siyaya to perform at and organizations willing to sponsor them. Siyaya at that point was having a lot of issues financially and were struggling to keep the program going. I was very nervous about that idea, because I didn't want any the people in the group to lose what they had and end up on the streets. I believe that the JL Zwane Center is a wonderful place for people in the townships to keep their minds occupied and away from violence and drugs. If only there were thousands more of them around the country maybe things would be a little different.
The big issue with marketing a township group is technology and resources. The JL Zwane Center only had so many computers and everyday I went in there the computers were either not working or someone else was occupying them. I resorted to working at the homebase, but just as I switched work places, the Internet in our house wasn't working and I didn't have other available programs to upload pictures or MP3 tracks for the group to send to promoters. It was a very difficult week where I felt I accomplished very little. I did make several phone calls to promoters who were interested in having the group perform, but they needed information about the group via e-mail mp3s and jpeg pictures and so I'm still working on acquiring that material for them.
Although there were issues with my week there were a lot positives as well. The new CCS volunteers came to see Siyaya perform on Thursday and they blew everyone away. It was a great feeling and once again everyone congratulated me on helping teach them music and vocal technique.
After being here for 7 weeks I feel a very large connection with my group in terms of their passion and dedication to music. Although I'm no longer a musical performer, I can still remember the days of high school and college choir and steel band where I stood on the stage and felt a surge of energy in my body. Each performance was very euphoric and brought me to wonderful place. That's why I love music so much and I can see that same energy flow through my group Siyaya.
As I continue on my journey I will not give up in terms of working to promote the group and hopefully acquire sponsors that will keep this program going. In the future I hope to reach out to people in the states and spread the word about the Siyaya so maybe one day we can get them back to the United States to perform.
Thanks for reading this week's installation of Kevin Tackles South Africa. There are only 3 more weeks to go!!! I'm very excited, but also nervous at the idea of leaving this wonderful place. Please feel free to send you comments. Everyone has been so wonderful in their support so keep it up. Thanks again!
Kevin
As we saw Table Mountain in the distance I could feel an overwhelming sense of relief. I really felt for once like I was coming back to a home that I had not seen for a long time. Although Cape Town isn't as peaceful as Robertson, it has so many other qualities that make it so memorable. In that way Cape Town seems more like a place to stay then a place to get away from, but that's just the opinion of someone who has been living in South Africa for 7 weeks.
Although I was excited about coming back I was also pretty nervous. Unfortunately we were not coming back to the same Cape Town we once knew. Our homebase in Rondebosch was no longer a CCS residence. We were now moving into homebase 1 in Rosebank where a whole new group of volunteers had arrived the day we left for Robertson. It's not always easy to meet new people, especially when those people have already been acquainted with their own group for 2 weeks. I also had my own friendships established with the people that I originally came to Cape Town with. In that way I was just as much at risk for judgement of others.
Meeting this new group was another experience that opened my eyes to what else has been so wonderful about the Cross-Cultural Solutions program. The idea that people would pay to go to another country and do volunteer work for free really says a lot about the character of those individuals. I didn't realize this until meeting the next group of volunteers. There were about 13 new volunteers that were living in the CCS house in Rosebank. Again they were from all over including California, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Scotland. Even at the first moment we walked through the door we were greeted with many smiling faces asking us questions about our experience in Cape Town. For once I felt like I was the knowledgeable and cultured individual from Cape Town. It was a good feeling, but more than that it was good to feel like the individuals that you were living with were happy to have you among their group even after they established their bond. Finally, they all seem to really enjoy their volunteer work and had the same enthusiasm to be in South Africa.
On Monday, September 15th I was extremely excited about returning to my placement in Guguletu. I came into the JL Zwane center to everyone coming up and giving me hugs and asking how my journey was in Robertson. I showed them pictures and brought chocolate as a welcome back present. Warning to anyone who does volunteer work in South Africa: Make sure you bring enough for everyone if you decide to bring food to your place of work. It eventually worked out where everyone got a piece of chocolate, but man I thought people were going to kill each other for one of the bars of Toblerone. That day they had a concert going on for a little over 100 primary school kids at the JL Zwane Center. The concert involved an intense message about HIV/AIDS awareness. The concert was also to be attended by 4 major representatives from South Africa's largest insurance company. The company was looking to sponsor Siyaya in some of their performances and programs. It was a very important day so I stayed longer than usual to help set up and break down the show. Once again Siyaya put on a dazzling performance that had the students up and dancing like they were at a rock concert. During the encores Ntutu a soloist in the group brought some of the kids up to have dance competitions. This was definitely not planned for, but the kids loved every minute of it. It was a very emotional day with me coming back and seeing the group again, but also because they gave such a memorable performance.
Although the week started off well, a lot problems arose throughout. I began to move away from working on music with the group to working on promotion. I tried to give myself a set schedule where I would work on researching venues for Siyaya to perform at and organizations willing to sponsor them. Siyaya at that point was having a lot of issues financially and were struggling to keep the program going. I was very nervous about that idea, because I didn't want any the people in the group to lose what they had and end up on the streets. I believe that the JL Zwane Center is a wonderful place for people in the townships to keep their minds occupied and away from violence and drugs. If only there were thousands more of them around the country maybe things would be a little different.
The big issue with marketing a township group is technology and resources. The JL Zwane Center only had so many computers and everyday I went in there the computers were either not working or someone else was occupying them. I resorted to working at the homebase, but just as I switched work places, the Internet in our house wasn't working and I didn't have other available programs to upload pictures or MP3 tracks for the group to send to promoters. It was a very difficult week where I felt I accomplished very little. I did make several phone calls to promoters who were interested in having the group perform, but they needed information about the group via e-mail mp3s and jpeg pictures and so I'm still working on acquiring that material for them.
Although there were issues with my week there were a lot positives as well. The new CCS volunteers came to see Siyaya perform on Thursday and they blew everyone away. It was a great feeling and once again everyone congratulated me on helping teach them music and vocal technique.
After being here for 7 weeks I feel a very large connection with my group in terms of their passion and dedication to music. Although I'm no longer a musical performer, I can still remember the days of high school and college choir and steel band where I stood on the stage and felt a surge of energy in my body. Each performance was very euphoric and brought me to wonderful place. That's why I love music so much and I can see that same energy flow through my group Siyaya.
As I continue on my journey I will not give up in terms of working to promote the group and hopefully acquire sponsors that will keep this program going. In the future I hope to reach out to people in the states and spread the word about the Siyaya so maybe one day we can get them back to the United States to perform.
Thanks for reading this week's installation of Kevin Tackles South Africa. There are only 3 more weeks to go!!! I'm very excited, but also nervous at the idea of leaving this wonderful place. Please feel free to send you comments. Everyone has been so wonderful in their support so keep it up. Thanks again!
Kevin
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Week # 5 & 6 The Robertson Chronicles
Before I start this blog I just want to apologize for the wait. The internet connectivity in Roberston, South Africa was a large issue so it was difficult for me to write my blog last week. This is why I've decided to chronicle all the happenings in Robertson in one blog.
They call Robertson, South Africa "The valley of wine and roses" as it is situated in the wine country about 2 1/2 hours east of Cape Town. Unlike Cape Town, Robertson is extremely rural and is surrounded by vast mountain ranges and farms. The people were extremely friendly and the townships were so safe that we were able to walk around them without any fear of anything happening, which was definitely a large difference from Cape Town. On the downside the racism in Robertson somewhat exceeded my expectations in comparison to Cape Town.
On Saturday, August 29th we were all packed and excited to be somewhere else. We drove down looking at all of the countryside thinking that we were in a different world coming out of the big city and moving to the big country. There was 6 of us total volunteering for 2 weeks including, Rachael, Evan, Lilly, Nicole, Ty, and myself. When we pulled up to our new homebase we were ecstatic. The homebase was down a dirt road 3 km away from the main road. It was in the middle of a mountain range that circled the house. It was gorgeous. The house itself was also very nice and exceeded all of our expectations. We all felt an overwhelming sense of relaxation as 4 weeks in Cape Town was a lot of work and very stressful with all of the safety measures we had to take anytime we went out. Here we were informed that Robertson was extremely safe and being in a house 4km away from the town meant that we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which for once was a wonderful feeling. I think everyone agreed that it was nice to get away from the hustle of Cape Town for a bit.
The next day we met our program director Lynda who took us down on a riverboat lunch at a winery, which was very nice and relaxing. We met some wonderful people who all lived in Robertson and owned their own small businesses. Lynda knew all of them as she has owned a backpackers lodge in Robertson for the past 10 years. This experience was significant to my understanding of how small a town Robertson is. Everyone knew each other and if you had lived there for more than a couple years and saw someone you didn't know you knew they were from out of town. After the lunch we went on tour of the downtown area and the nearby township called Khubela. The township was very interesting as there was an overall carefree feeling in the air. The people didn't seem threatening what so ever and many of the children were running on the streets and waving to us in the car.
The next day was our first day at our volunteer placements. At the beginning I felt at ease, because I already had the experience with volunteering in the townships in Cape Town so I thought it was going to be cake. Unfortunately my first day was probably the most stressful day I spent in Robertson. I was volunteering with Ty at a primary school, which is the equivalent to a elementary school in America. We were working in their computer lab teaching kids very basic programs on the computer. The Internet wasn't working that day so we had to work with what programs were left on the computer. At first I thought it was going to be easy, but the kids that were coming in were in the 2nd and 3rd grade and didn't know a word of English. They all spoke Afrikaans, which is 1 of the 11 native languages of South Africa. Afrikaans is a heavily dutch influenced language that developed out of the beginning of Dutch colonialism. With no knowledge of Afrikaans I had no idea how to speak to the kids. The other problem was the fact that most of the 2nd and 3rd graders never have used a computer in their life. I tried to show them programs like Microsoft paint to see if they could draw a picture, but it was so difficult for them to maneuver a mouse that it almost seemed hopeless. Eventually they all got tired of drawing and wanted to play games, but they even had trouble with that. At the end of day I was extremely nervous about the future of my placement with my lack of knowledge of the Afrikaans language and the lack of programs that were available it didn't seem like much was going to happen with our placements in the future. I was exhausted after placement and spent the night contemplating what I was going to do the next day.
The next day I woke up worried and wondering if the internet would be back up so we could research some free programs for the kids to use. Our supervisor Houman was in the lobby ready to greet us. Houman was a 37 year old Geography and Math teacher at De Villiers Primary School. He was extremely kind and was very active with the kids helping them out with coaching the track team. He was also very adventurous as he had been out the country a couple occasions traveling to New Zealand to work on farms and South Korea for a traditional sporting games competition. He told us the internet was being worked on and would hopefully be up today. Ty and I crossed our fingers as we went upstairs. To our amazment a gentleman greeted us in the lab, pressed a couple buttons on the main network computer and the internet was up and running! I was really excited and started researching typing programs for the kids. The other aspect of our placement we were still unsure of was the age of the students we would recieve and if they could understand us. Even though we didn't speak out about this issue, Houman seemed to already understand and sent us a group of 6 and 7 graders. I found a typing program online that seemed very accessible and user friendly. I worked on a program where I taught proper typing form and what fingers you needed to use for each key. The program gave them tutorials to go through, which taught them two keys at a time and gave them a speed goal, which you could set. In the matter of an hour the kids seem to have a great grasp on typing and were actually improving as time progressed. It was a great feeling, especially in the idea of how essential a skill typing is in today's world. I felt like if I could create program where some of the kids could get in the lab everyday for an hour then they could use this program to help develop really crucial skills. It was amusing to think how excited I was to teach typing to my kids, because I could always remember my mother hassling me about going on the computer everyday and using one of the many typing programs. I remember hating them, but now I look and I'm definitely glad I have that skill. In the matter of 24 hours Ty and I seemed to change our feelings to our placement completely. That night we did a township tour of Khubela, which was very exciting because I wanted to gain insight on what the culture was like and how it compared to Cape Town. It was a walking tour, which was already different. In Cape Town we visited 3 different townships on our tour and the walking through each of them was very restricted, but in Robertson we could walk around the township without a worry. People seemed excited to see us, and even random people came up to greet us. They asked about where we came from and what we were doing in South Africa and seemed very happy to meet us overall. It was a great tour and we even got to go to a local shebeen, which was an experience. A shebeen is an illegal township bar. Illegal meaning that they don't have a beer or liqour license so all the beer they get comes from neighborhood houses across the street. In Cape Town a white person would never dare to go to a shebeen, because of the dangers of getting robbed or beaten. Overall it was a wonderful day and it seemed like things were changing from monday.
The rest of week continued to be very successful as we continued our typing program. We got to know Houman very well along with other teachers in the faculty. We even got to participate in a Friday field day where the students got to play games in the back of the school for a good portion of the day. The games included jump rope, marbles, rugby, cricket, and other traditional games. It was a very special day called "Casual Friday" which happens once a year where the students don't have to wear their school uniforms and can dress in whatever they want. Houman told us that he called it "American Day". The students who dressed up also made a small donation to environmental funds that contributed to the preservation of the beautiful town of Robertson. They also celebrated this day by planting trees in the back of their school.
Going into the weekend I was filled gratitude thinking that my placement was really having an impact on me. The kids were so disciplined that I was amazed. I knew that if I ever tried to teach American kids in the 6th and 7th grade how to type it would have been a mess of crazy behavior. The kids at this primary school listened to everything I said and seemed very determend to learn the work. It continues to make me think of the potential these kids have if there were more resources available.
To celebrate the weekend our group planned a 14km from McGregor to a small town called Greyton. It was a gorgeous hike that took us through mountain valleys filled with exotic flowers, trees, and plants. The views of waterfalls, cliffs, mountain tops with clouds hovering just below were amazing. We reached the town of Greyton in 6 hours and stayed overnight. Greyton was a really nice small european looking farm town. We felt like we came to some town in the Netherlands. The people were extraorindarily nice and one even treated us to a bottle of wine when we were eating dinner. Waking up the next morning we hiked back to McGregor, which was a difficult task as we did another 14km when we were still sore from the previous day. Rachael had probelms a little more than half way through the hike because her knees were overworked. To my amazement she powered through the last 6km of that hike and seemed fine when we return to the homebase. A big shout out goes to her for being a champ on that hike.
The next Monday Ty and I walked into our placement and went to an Assembly that consisted of a very religious presentation given by a speaker. These assemblies happened every Monday and were given to the kids to promote the ideas of Christianity and to stay away from drugs and violence. Even though I couldn't understand a word the speaker was saying it was a very interesting experience as the speaker was so passionate about what she was saying that she teared up many times during the middle of speech. The behaviour of the children was another testament to their amazing discipline as you didn't hear one word through out the entire 30 minutes. The kids ended the assembly by singing and praying. I stood again very gratified to know that the institution I was working in was doing a lot of good to help the children of the future.
Throughout the week Ty and I continued on our typing regiment, but also included some lessons on how to use microsoft word and internet search engines like google for research. The work was successful and the students seem to get more familier with using a computer. Their typing skills increased and they seemded really pleased to be working with us.
That week our supervisor Houman took us out around town showing us the different sites and telling us about the culture of Robertson. Although the people from Robertson, both black and white were very nice separately you could tell that there was a lot of tension and divides between people of different color. The one thing that stood out was how we were driving around town. Houman drove a pick up truck with a canopy in the back. He used the truck mostly for his side mobile car wash business. When Ty and I drove with him one us sat in front while the other sat in the pick up hitch in the back. As we drove through the separate color neighborhoods I asked Houman what would the white neighborhood act like if they were out on their lawns and saw a black man driving a pick up truck with a white person in the hitch. He told me that their jaws would probably drop as they have never seen anything like that before. Just as quickly as I said that we drove through some areas where white people noticed us and definitely looked back twice to make sure of what they saw. After traveling around we stopped at Houman's parent's house. They were so welcoming and quickly asked if they could feed us. We politly declined, but you could tell that when their son brought guests they almost automatically treated them as family. Our next stop was at Houman's house where we met his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter. His daughter ashlynn was so adorable and full of energy. She was like a mini gymnist as she found stair rails, door knobs, and anything else she hang from to do tricks. We ended up spending the majority of the evening with them talking and enjoying one anothers company. We also spent the next afternoon and evening together at the hot springs a natural hot water pool in a small city called Montagu. We then had dinner with them afterwards. It was so amazing to spend so much time with the people from our placement. Houman seemed so excited to have us learn about his family and where he came from. His optimism and passion for life really transferred to me and Ty and we really cherished our time with him. Overall it was definitely the largest highlight of the trip.
Our last day at De Villiers Primary school was very difficult because I felt like I was really connecting with everyone there, but we were so quick to leave being that we were there for only two weeks. Some of the other volunteers had a very similar experience. Robertson was very different place from Cape Town with the freedom you could express there as a foreigner, but there were also many similarities. There was so much beauty among the people and the town as there was in Cape Town, but at the same time there was a strong yet extremely subtle ugliness that came with that because of the racism and division that encompassed the entire town. Cape Town definitely has it's share of racial tension, but it definitely shows up a lot more clearly in Robertson in my opinion.
I'll never forget my experiences in Robertson and I hope I was able to convey the impact of these experiences through my blog entitled "The Robertson Chronicles". I'm currently back in Cape Town returning to SIYAYA to work with them on getting them performance opportunities and help them learn more music. Thanks again for everyone's love and support and please keep tuned to "Kevin Tackles South Africa".
Best,
Kevin
They call Robertson, South Africa "The valley of wine and roses" as it is situated in the wine country about 2 1/2 hours east of Cape Town. Unlike Cape Town, Robertson is extremely rural and is surrounded by vast mountain ranges and farms. The people were extremely friendly and the townships were so safe that we were able to walk around them without any fear of anything happening, which was definitely a large difference from Cape Town. On the downside the racism in Robertson somewhat exceeded my expectations in comparison to Cape Town.
On Saturday, August 29th we were all packed and excited to be somewhere else. We drove down looking at all of the countryside thinking that we were in a different world coming out of the big city and moving to the big country. There was 6 of us total volunteering for 2 weeks including, Rachael, Evan, Lilly, Nicole, Ty, and myself. When we pulled up to our new homebase we were ecstatic. The homebase was down a dirt road 3 km away from the main road. It was in the middle of a mountain range that circled the house. It was gorgeous. The house itself was also very nice and exceeded all of our expectations. We all felt an overwhelming sense of relaxation as 4 weeks in Cape Town was a lot of work and very stressful with all of the safety measures we had to take anytime we went out. Here we were informed that Robertson was extremely safe and being in a house 4km away from the town meant that we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which for once was a wonderful feeling. I think everyone agreed that it was nice to get away from the hustle of Cape Town for a bit.
The next day we met our program director Lynda who took us down on a riverboat lunch at a winery, which was very nice and relaxing. We met some wonderful people who all lived in Robertson and owned their own small businesses. Lynda knew all of them as she has owned a backpackers lodge in Robertson for the past 10 years. This experience was significant to my understanding of how small a town Robertson is. Everyone knew each other and if you had lived there for more than a couple years and saw someone you didn't know you knew they were from out of town. After the lunch we went on tour of the downtown area and the nearby township called Khubela. The township was very interesting as there was an overall carefree feeling in the air. The people didn't seem threatening what so ever and many of the children were running on the streets and waving to us in the car.
The next day was our first day at our volunteer placements. At the beginning I felt at ease, because I already had the experience with volunteering in the townships in Cape Town so I thought it was going to be cake. Unfortunately my first day was probably the most stressful day I spent in Robertson. I was volunteering with Ty at a primary school, which is the equivalent to a elementary school in America. We were working in their computer lab teaching kids very basic programs on the computer. The Internet wasn't working that day so we had to work with what programs were left on the computer. At first I thought it was going to be easy, but the kids that were coming in were in the 2nd and 3rd grade and didn't know a word of English. They all spoke Afrikaans, which is 1 of the 11 native languages of South Africa. Afrikaans is a heavily dutch influenced language that developed out of the beginning of Dutch colonialism. With no knowledge of Afrikaans I had no idea how to speak to the kids. The other problem was the fact that most of the 2nd and 3rd graders never have used a computer in their life. I tried to show them programs like Microsoft paint to see if they could draw a picture, but it was so difficult for them to maneuver a mouse that it almost seemed hopeless. Eventually they all got tired of drawing and wanted to play games, but they even had trouble with that. At the end of day I was extremely nervous about the future of my placement with my lack of knowledge of the Afrikaans language and the lack of programs that were available it didn't seem like much was going to happen with our placements in the future. I was exhausted after placement and spent the night contemplating what I was going to do the next day.
The next day I woke up worried and wondering if the internet would be back up so we could research some free programs for the kids to use. Our supervisor Houman was in the lobby ready to greet us. Houman was a 37 year old Geography and Math teacher at De Villiers Primary School. He was extremely kind and was very active with the kids helping them out with coaching the track team. He was also very adventurous as he had been out the country a couple occasions traveling to New Zealand to work on farms and South Korea for a traditional sporting games competition. He told us the internet was being worked on and would hopefully be up today. Ty and I crossed our fingers as we went upstairs. To our amazment a gentleman greeted us in the lab, pressed a couple buttons on the main network computer and the internet was up and running! I was really excited and started researching typing programs for the kids. The other aspect of our placement we were still unsure of was the age of the students we would recieve and if they could understand us. Even though we didn't speak out about this issue, Houman seemed to already understand and sent us a group of 6 and 7 graders. I found a typing program online that seemed very accessible and user friendly. I worked on a program where I taught proper typing form and what fingers you needed to use for each key. The program gave them tutorials to go through, which taught them two keys at a time and gave them a speed goal, which you could set. In the matter of an hour the kids seem to have a great grasp on typing and were actually improving as time progressed. It was a great feeling, especially in the idea of how essential a skill typing is in today's world. I felt like if I could create program where some of the kids could get in the lab everyday for an hour then they could use this program to help develop really crucial skills. It was amusing to think how excited I was to teach typing to my kids, because I could always remember my mother hassling me about going on the computer everyday and using one of the many typing programs. I remember hating them, but now I look and I'm definitely glad I have that skill. In the matter of 24 hours Ty and I seemed to change our feelings to our placement completely. That night we did a township tour of Khubela, which was very exciting because I wanted to gain insight on what the culture was like and how it compared to Cape Town. It was a walking tour, which was already different. In Cape Town we visited 3 different townships on our tour and the walking through each of them was very restricted, but in Robertson we could walk around the township without a worry. People seemed excited to see us, and even random people came up to greet us. They asked about where we came from and what we were doing in South Africa and seemed very happy to meet us overall. It was a great tour and we even got to go to a local shebeen, which was an experience. A shebeen is an illegal township bar. Illegal meaning that they don't have a beer or liqour license so all the beer they get comes from neighborhood houses across the street. In Cape Town a white person would never dare to go to a shebeen, because of the dangers of getting robbed or beaten. Overall it was a wonderful day and it seemed like things were changing from monday.
The rest of week continued to be very successful as we continued our typing program. We got to know Houman very well along with other teachers in the faculty. We even got to participate in a Friday field day where the students got to play games in the back of the school for a good portion of the day. The games included jump rope, marbles, rugby, cricket, and other traditional games. It was a very special day called "Casual Friday" which happens once a year where the students don't have to wear their school uniforms and can dress in whatever they want. Houman told us that he called it "American Day". The students who dressed up also made a small donation to environmental funds that contributed to the preservation of the beautiful town of Robertson. They also celebrated this day by planting trees in the back of their school.
Going into the weekend I was filled gratitude thinking that my placement was really having an impact on me. The kids were so disciplined that I was amazed. I knew that if I ever tried to teach American kids in the 6th and 7th grade how to type it would have been a mess of crazy behavior. The kids at this primary school listened to everything I said and seemed very determend to learn the work. It continues to make me think of the potential these kids have if there were more resources available.
To celebrate the weekend our group planned a 14km from McGregor to a small town called Greyton. It was a gorgeous hike that took us through mountain valleys filled with exotic flowers, trees, and plants. The views of waterfalls, cliffs, mountain tops with clouds hovering just below were amazing. We reached the town of Greyton in 6 hours and stayed overnight. Greyton was a really nice small european looking farm town. We felt like we came to some town in the Netherlands. The people were extraorindarily nice and one even treated us to a bottle of wine when we were eating dinner. Waking up the next morning we hiked back to McGregor, which was a difficult task as we did another 14km when we were still sore from the previous day. Rachael had probelms a little more than half way through the hike because her knees were overworked. To my amazement she powered through the last 6km of that hike and seemed fine when we return to the homebase. A big shout out goes to her for being a champ on that hike.
The next Monday Ty and I walked into our placement and went to an Assembly that consisted of a very religious presentation given by a speaker. These assemblies happened every Monday and were given to the kids to promote the ideas of Christianity and to stay away from drugs and violence. Even though I couldn't understand a word the speaker was saying it was a very interesting experience as the speaker was so passionate about what she was saying that she teared up many times during the middle of speech. The behaviour of the children was another testament to their amazing discipline as you didn't hear one word through out the entire 30 minutes. The kids ended the assembly by singing and praying. I stood again very gratified to know that the institution I was working in was doing a lot of good to help the children of the future.
Throughout the week Ty and I continued on our typing regiment, but also included some lessons on how to use microsoft word and internet search engines like google for research. The work was successful and the students seem to get more familier with using a computer. Their typing skills increased and they seemded really pleased to be working with us.
That week our supervisor Houman took us out around town showing us the different sites and telling us about the culture of Robertson. Although the people from Robertson, both black and white were very nice separately you could tell that there was a lot of tension and divides between people of different color. The one thing that stood out was how we were driving around town. Houman drove a pick up truck with a canopy in the back. He used the truck mostly for his side mobile car wash business. When Ty and I drove with him one us sat in front while the other sat in the pick up hitch in the back. As we drove through the separate color neighborhoods I asked Houman what would the white neighborhood act like if they were out on their lawns and saw a black man driving a pick up truck with a white person in the hitch. He told me that their jaws would probably drop as they have never seen anything like that before. Just as quickly as I said that we drove through some areas where white people noticed us and definitely looked back twice to make sure of what they saw. After traveling around we stopped at Houman's parent's house. They were so welcoming and quickly asked if they could feed us. We politly declined, but you could tell that when their son brought guests they almost automatically treated them as family. Our next stop was at Houman's house where we met his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter. His daughter ashlynn was so adorable and full of energy. She was like a mini gymnist as she found stair rails, door knobs, and anything else she hang from to do tricks. We ended up spending the majority of the evening with them talking and enjoying one anothers company. We also spent the next afternoon and evening together at the hot springs a natural hot water pool in a small city called Montagu. We then had dinner with them afterwards. It was so amazing to spend so much time with the people from our placement. Houman seemed so excited to have us learn about his family and where he came from. His optimism and passion for life really transferred to me and Ty and we really cherished our time with him. Overall it was definitely the largest highlight of the trip.
Our last day at De Villiers Primary school was very difficult because I felt like I was really connecting with everyone there, but we were so quick to leave being that we were there for only two weeks. Some of the other volunteers had a very similar experience. Robertson was very different place from Cape Town with the freedom you could express there as a foreigner, but there were also many similarities. There was so much beauty among the people and the town as there was in Cape Town, but at the same time there was a strong yet extremely subtle ugliness that came with that because of the racism and division that encompassed the entire town. Cape Town definitely has it's share of racial tension, but it definitely shows up a lot more clearly in Robertson in my opinion.
I'll never forget my experiences in Robertson and I hope I was able to convey the impact of these experiences through my blog entitled "The Robertson Chronicles". I'm currently back in Cape Town returning to SIYAYA to work with them on getting them performance opportunities and help them learn more music. Thanks again for everyone's love and support and please keep tuned to "Kevin Tackles South Africa".
Best,
Kevin
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Week #4 Transitions and new beginnings
Waking up Sunday morning on August 23rd was very strange as the house seemed extremely empty. Only 4 people from homebase 2 left, but their personalities and their connections with myself and the other volunteers were big losses.
Although it was tough to say good bye, our group still kept their spirits high. We knew we still hadn't explored all that Cape Town had to offer, as that is almost impossible with just 3 weeks. On the positive end we knew we were done with the formal programming of CCS, and now the weeks to come would be up to us. We could explore as much as we wanted and at our own leisure. That afternoon we decided to take a trip to Hout Bay to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather. The beach was very nice, but I was dying to go out on sea and experience the Atlantic. We found a tour boat that went out to the coveted seal island, which is supposedly populated with over 10,000 seals. It was a pretty amazing sight along with an old ship wreck and a whale sighting. The best part of the tour for me was the fact that I was on the water. The beauty of the Atlantic was breathtaking. Surrounded by the mountain scapes you could see the waves crashing up on the rocks like something you saw in the movies. I also loved the waves crashing in mid ocean. There were many spots in the ocean, far away from the shore where the waves would break and create a wave that seemed so out of place that they were almost magic. Of course in reality the waves were breaking over rocks that were under the water and invisible to our sight, but to me the mist that came off the white foam of those waves seemed to belong to the uniqueness of the dynamic South African oceans.
The next day I was excited to get into placement because I was planning on teaching the kids of SIYAYA one of my favorite choral tunes. "And So It Goes", by Billy Joel has a special place in my heart as it was a tune that I did a duet solo performance with a girl named Katie McManus. It was the first time I got to sing a solo in my high school chamber choir. It was always a big deal in school to get solos in choir, and being that it was my first I definitely felt like I made my mark. More than that though the girl I sang that duet with, Katie was an incredible singer. She was also a wonderful person who was full of life and had an immense passion for the arts. At our final farewell performance she did a solo performance of a Sarah Mclaughlin tune that literally brought tears to my eyes. Katie was a good friend and she was very successful going off to the University of Rochester to do studies in religion and studio art. Unfortunately her journey was cut short as she died shortly after she graduated in a car accident when she was on vacation in the Virgin Islands. It was a huge tragedy, but every time I hear "And So It Goes" it always makes me think of her and that she's in a better place now. If anything I have to dedicate this blog post to Katie "I miss you and hope you've found peace" The kids of SIYAYA were instantly pulled in by the song and started learning the melodies and rhythms quicker than with the previous tune. I knew this song would be successful with the group and would definitely be something new that their audiences wouldn't expect.
The next day at placement the group did another couple performances at the health clinics to entertain people while they waited for their doctors. A couple other guests from America dropped by to check out the group. A gentleman named Marvin and his son came by from I believe Atlanta, but don't quote me on that. Anyway Marvin was part of a church that was interested in financing SIYAYA to go into a studio and record a CD so they could further promote the group. I thought this was an amazing opportunity for SIYAYA. The largest problem with the group that I want to try and help them with is they have no room financially to promote themselves. Another part of my job with SIYAYA is to investigate how I can get the group out to perform more in South Africa. It's always terrible to see talent go to waste and I knew exactly what that meant when I heard this group. They come everyday to practice, but very rarely do they have places to perform. I'm currently investigating opportunities for the group to perform in clubs, museums, theaters, schools, malls, and any other performance venues.
That evening I went out with some friends to the South African National Gallery of Art. While being on this trip I try every week to get some sort of cultural enlightening experience. visual art has always had a large impact on me and some of the art that conveyed the images of apartheid were very strong statements. The one that stuck out the most was a sculpture of an old wooden table with a sheet laying on top full of broken glass. At the end of the table was a bible chained to the table. This expression was extremely impactful as it represented the broken hopes and dreams of the South African people during the oppression of Apartheid.
The next evening was very interesting as I was planning on attending a choral rehearsal that was made up of 40-50 kids from the townships. Several of the members included SIYAYA personnel. The director of group Bongani, was also the director of SIYAYA. He had been asking me to come for weeks and I was finally able to free myself from the CCS programs. The rehearsal was in a township called Niyanga. Bongani picked me up along with a couple people apart of the group. When I heard the group perform it was a huge amount of sound. The volume of the group made them sound like a 120 person ensemble. They were rehearsing original tunes and western classics like "Ave Maria". They finished the rehearsal by performing African choral works in Xhosa, one the native click languages of SA. I've been taking some Xhosa lessons since I've been here and to even use the clicks in regular speech was already hard enough, I couldn't even imagine singing them. The African choral works included alot of dance choreography which brought the works to life. I have several of videos of the group that I plan on putting up on my facebook when I get a chance. The rehearsal was very much an inspiration. I was so happy to see a group of kids all so passionate about music doing something creative with their free time. One of the things that I worry about when it comes to the township life style is how so many people don't have the opportunity to participate in things like this and because of that they resort to drugs, gangs, and violence.
With all of my experiences with SIYAYA I really felt like I was establishing a strong bond with the group. The unfortunate thing was that this weekend would be the weekend I would be leaving for Robertson, South Africa to do volunteer work there with 5 other volunteers for 2 weeks. Cross-Cultural Solutions has another program in South Africa in the beautiful winelands of Robertson. This year was there 1st year for the program so it was a pilot year to test out the success of the program. Unfortunately they were not able to get enough participants so there was a decent discussion of whether or not they should cancel the program early. Our program director was able to influence myself and 5 of the other Cape Town volunteers to give 2 weeks of our time to come down to the Robertson program for no extra charge so they could keep the program going. We all decided to give it a try thinking that it would be a nice change from the Cape Town scene. As I write this blog I'm sitting in our homebase in Robertson, but I will have more about my experience in next week's blog. Just to let you know it's been really great so far. Anyways, although I was planning to leave my group for 2 weeks I knew I would be back for another 4 weeks in Cape Town to try and work more on getting performance opportunities for SIYAYA, but still it was always a little tough to say good bye and transition to a new beginning.
As the week came to a close I was able to make a stop to the botanical gardens in Kirstenbosch and a tour of Robben Island where they imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 18 years and thousands of other political prisoners during the time of Apartheid. Robben Island held a special interest in my mind as I read Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk To Freedom", which I strongly reccomend to everyone who has even the slightest interest in South Africa or the political happenings of Apartheid.
Now the time comes for me journey off to Robertson, South Africa. The beautiful farmlands surrounded by mountains resonate with a quaint farm town. The people have been extremely friendly and have welcomed us here with open arms. I'm excited to share my experiences in Robertson in next week's Kevin Tackles South Africa blog, until then thanks for reading and please feel free to e-mail or check out my pics of my facebook page!
Kevin
Although it was tough to say good bye, our group still kept their spirits high. We knew we still hadn't explored all that Cape Town had to offer, as that is almost impossible with just 3 weeks. On the positive end we knew we were done with the formal programming of CCS, and now the weeks to come would be up to us. We could explore as much as we wanted and at our own leisure. That afternoon we decided to take a trip to Hout Bay to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather. The beach was very nice, but I was dying to go out on sea and experience the Atlantic. We found a tour boat that went out to the coveted seal island, which is supposedly populated with over 10,000 seals. It was a pretty amazing sight along with an old ship wreck and a whale sighting. The best part of the tour for me was the fact that I was on the water. The beauty of the Atlantic was breathtaking. Surrounded by the mountain scapes you could see the waves crashing up on the rocks like something you saw in the movies. I also loved the waves crashing in mid ocean. There were many spots in the ocean, far away from the shore where the waves would break and create a wave that seemed so out of place that they were almost magic. Of course in reality the waves were breaking over rocks that were under the water and invisible to our sight, but to me the mist that came off the white foam of those waves seemed to belong to the uniqueness of the dynamic South African oceans.
The next day I was excited to get into placement because I was planning on teaching the kids of SIYAYA one of my favorite choral tunes. "And So It Goes", by Billy Joel has a special place in my heart as it was a tune that I did a duet solo performance with a girl named Katie McManus. It was the first time I got to sing a solo in my high school chamber choir. It was always a big deal in school to get solos in choir, and being that it was my first I definitely felt like I made my mark. More than that though the girl I sang that duet with, Katie was an incredible singer. She was also a wonderful person who was full of life and had an immense passion for the arts. At our final farewell performance she did a solo performance of a Sarah Mclaughlin tune that literally brought tears to my eyes. Katie was a good friend and she was very successful going off to the University of Rochester to do studies in religion and studio art. Unfortunately her journey was cut short as she died shortly after she graduated in a car accident when she was on vacation in the Virgin Islands. It was a huge tragedy, but every time I hear "And So It Goes" it always makes me think of her and that she's in a better place now. If anything I have to dedicate this blog post to Katie "I miss you and hope you've found peace" The kids of SIYAYA were instantly pulled in by the song and started learning the melodies and rhythms quicker than with the previous tune. I knew this song would be successful with the group and would definitely be something new that their audiences wouldn't expect.
The next day at placement the group did another couple performances at the health clinics to entertain people while they waited for their doctors. A couple other guests from America dropped by to check out the group. A gentleman named Marvin and his son came by from I believe Atlanta, but don't quote me on that. Anyway Marvin was part of a church that was interested in financing SIYAYA to go into a studio and record a CD so they could further promote the group. I thought this was an amazing opportunity for SIYAYA. The largest problem with the group that I want to try and help them with is they have no room financially to promote themselves. Another part of my job with SIYAYA is to investigate how I can get the group out to perform more in South Africa. It's always terrible to see talent go to waste and I knew exactly what that meant when I heard this group. They come everyday to practice, but very rarely do they have places to perform. I'm currently investigating opportunities for the group to perform in clubs, museums, theaters, schools, malls, and any other performance venues.
That evening I went out with some friends to the South African National Gallery of Art. While being on this trip I try every week to get some sort of cultural enlightening experience. visual art has always had a large impact on me and some of the art that conveyed the images of apartheid were very strong statements. The one that stuck out the most was a sculpture of an old wooden table with a sheet laying on top full of broken glass. At the end of the table was a bible chained to the table. This expression was extremely impactful as it represented the broken hopes and dreams of the South African people during the oppression of Apartheid.
The next evening was very interesting as I was planning on attending a choral rehearsal that was made up of 40-50 kids from the townships. Several of the members included SIYAYA personnel. The director of group Bongani, was also the director of SIYAYA. He had been asking me to come for weeks and I was finally able to free myself from the CCS programs. The rehearsal was in a township called Niyanga. Bongani picked me up along with a couple people apart of the group. When I heard the group perform it was a huge amount of sound. The volume of the group made them sound like a 120 person ensemble. They were rehearsing original tunes and western classics like "Ave Maria". They finished the rehearsal by performing African choral works in Xhosa, one the native click languages of SA. I've been taking some Xhosa lessons since I've been here and to even use the clicks in regular speech was already hard enough, I couldn't even imagine singing them. The African choral works included alot of dance choreography which brought the works to life. I have several of videos of the group that I plan on putting up on my facebook when I get a chance. The rehearsal was very much an inspiration. I was so happy to see a group of kids all so passionate about music doing something creative with their free time. One of the things that I worry about when it comes to the township life style is how so many people don't have the opportunity to participate in things like this and because of that they resort to drugs, gangs, and violence.
With all of my experiences with SIYAYA I really felt like I was establishing a strong bond with the group. The unfortunate thing was that this weekend would be the weekend I would be leaving for Robertson, South Africa to do volunteer work there with 5 other volunteers for 2 weeks. Cross-Cultural Solutions has another program in South Africa in the beautiful winelands of Robertson. This year was there 1st year for the program so it was a pilot year to test out the success of the program. Unfortunately they were not able to get enough participants so there was a decent discussion of whether or not they should cancel the program early. Our program director was able to influence myself and 5 of the other Cape Town volunteers to give 2 weeks of our time to come down to the Robertson program for no extra charge so they could keep the program going. We all decided to give it a try thinking that it would be a nice change from the Cape Town scene. As I write this blog I'm sitting in our homebase in Robertson, but I will have more about my experience in next week's blog. Just to let you know it's been really great so far. Anyways, although I was planning to leave my group for 2 weeks I knew I would be back for another 4 weeks in Cape Town to try and work more on getting performance opportunities for SIYAYA, but still it was always a little tough to say good bye and transition to a new beginning.
As the week came to a close I was able to make a stop to the botanical gardens in Kirstenbosch and a tour of Robben Island where they imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 18 years and thousands of other political prisoners during the time of Apartheid. Robben Island held a special interest in my mind as I read Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk To Freedom", which I strongly reccomend to everyone who has even the slightest interest in South Africa or the political happenings of Apartheid.
Now the time comes for me journey off to Robertson, South Africa. The beautiful farmlands surrounded by mountains resonate with a quaint farm town. The people have been extremely friendly and have welcomed us here with open arms. I'm excited to share my experiences in Robertson in next week's Kevin Tackles South Africa blog, until then thanks for reading and please feel free to e-mail or check out my pics of my facebook page!
Kevin
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