It was our first day with the children at the Queens ballet school and it went really well! We all met at the school around 8:30/9ish and passed out name tags for the students to decorate. I was SO happy to see my friend from Jjemba's village to be there. Turns out her name DID start with a J, it is Jocelyn and she is wonderful. We split the group of students into two different studios I was left with the downstairs studio and Jocelyn was too!
We took class from Mariana, Priscilla, and Jemba today for two hours. Their lesson had us traveling to Uganda, Egypt, and France with different dance moves and then combing our groups to make a dance by the end of it all. It was great to be creating dances with these kids. They were a little timid today, but that is understandable since the space and people are new to so many of them.
After class we all walked back to Nakasero, which is the primary school we were taking class in last week. Each group showed their dances, the students had their snack, and then left. It was great to be able to take the time to go around and talk to some of the students as they ate. It was interesting to see the difference in children depending on what center they were coming from. Some of the students who came that are students of the ballet school had more confidence in their dancing and ideas than some of the others because they are privileged enough to be able to afford ballet classes.
Once the children left we stayed at Nakasero to rehearse the dances we learned last week as well as practice our drumming. Kelly and Kim (the singers of our group) taught us a revised version of "We are Family", which we will be singing as our finale in the show.
When we finished learning the song and rehearsing we hurried home to the Fang Fang with only enough time to wash our face, drop off our drum, and meet on our bus. I decided to leave EVERYTHING in the hotel tonight for our trip to Life of Africa and took a break from taking pictures. I kinda regret not having the camera with me, but feel like I had a better experience not worrying about trying to capture everything in a shot. Life of Africa is a center where children and women were welcomed to live and find support from being displaced after the war. They make their money by making jewelry out of magazine papers. It was incredible! They are called paper beads. The cut the paper into strips and roll the strips up tightly on a tiny stick and then glue together. They end up looking like beads in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. Their average bracelet cost 1,000 UGS or about .50 cents. I spent a good amount of money here in terms of UGS. It was great to spend money at the center knowing that every cent is going directly to the people making the jewelry. The money supports their bills for electricity at the center, their laptop, food and school fees for the children. I was able to speak with some of the women who were making the beads and had them teach me how to do it. It was awesome to just sit with them and ask them about their families and technique of bead making. I am SO happy I was able to support them and attempt to learn their trade.
The children were so fun too. There were so many of them all SO excited to see us! As soon as we pulled up into their neighborhood they started chasing the bus screaming, "Mugunzu!" a.k.a. "white person". We were able to play games, draw pictures on paper that Tacha brought, and talk to the children for a few hours while everyone finished up their shopping. It was incredible how connected we all felt again to these children. When we were leaving one of the little girls (maybe 1-2 years old) started crying with Kunal had to set her down. She just wanted him to keep holding her. When we were leaving on the bus they started chasing it down the street again waving and saying bye with the biggest smiles ever. I don't think there was a dry eye on the bus as we left. The conditions that these children and women live in, yet the joy they have to see us and play and speak with us is incredible. It really hit home.
After returning to the Fang Fang Krissy and I had dinner downstairs at the Fang Fang. It was such a physical and emotionally exhausting day we had no energy to go elsewhere. We invited our professor Deb to come join us for dinner, which she did along with Kunal and Mariana. It was a great dinner with great conversations about the day and trip so far.
Here's to more great days of teaching and learning from one another!
One of the children from Life of Africa sharing his drawing with me
The generous women that taught me how to make paper beads, LOVED talking to them
Learning how to make paper beads!
A cluster of my new paper bead jewelry collection. Did I mention each bracelet is about .50 cents and necklaces are a little over $1?!
Can't believe this is made from magazine paper strips
Love your posts. Thanks for doing this even though I know you're exhausted.
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