We woke up to a rainy day here in Kampala. Where we eat breakfast every morning is in the Fang Fang hotel restaurant which is around back in the garden. You have to exit the front of the hotel and walk around to the back to get there and we had to run through the rain. It felt amazing. I was wearing flip flops and a t-shirt. We ate our scrambled eggs as it softly rained all around us. I actually had chills on the way back to the room, which is a first since I've been here.
We headed over to the primary school shortly after breakfast and had our lessons again in the morning. This morning Judith taught us all about the Ankole region including the history and reason behind the dance we are learning from that region found in western Uganda. The dance is called the Kimandwa dance. It's purpose is to worship God and communicate to him through dance. Luckily this dance had easier songs that went along with it and I felt like I was catching on easier today than yesterday.
Right before lunch we got our drums and had a short drum circle. Bagonza led us in a few rhythms so we could start to feel comfortable playing our drums. Mine is absolutely beautiful, well they all are! The ones we have at NYU are also beautiful, but you can tell have been very loved by many and used quite a bit. The one I have now is brand new with new cow hide and new hand carved sticks. I'll try to post a picture soon when the internet starts to work better.
During lunch Krissy and I met with Denis to work on a trio for the show. Since Krissy and I brought our tap shoes and Denis knows how to dance with rattles (tied to his legs) we are going to choreograph a trio for the three of us. It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to continue to work on that. Should be an interesting piece!
After lunch we met in our teaching groups to further develop our lesson plans. I really enjoy the two people I work with, Brian and Tacha. We seem to work very well together. I think our plan is coming along great and with two more days to plan it should be all set! Time flew by today. I felt like we had just started to work on our lesson plans when they told us 45 minutes had gone by and it was time to regroup before returning to the hotel.
I asked my teaching partner, Brian, about going to a post office to buy stamps for all of my letters and postcards. We decided to go right after class since we had about an hour before we were scheduled to meet our bus and head out to our evening activity. Brian and I walked to the post office and I loved every minute of it! It was so nice to spend some time walking with him and asking him questions all about his life here. He is so nice and respectful and I know I've mentioned this once or twice, but so smart! He was very helpful with buying stamps and turns out were a lot more $ then I had planned to spend. I was able to send all but three so I'll be going back soon to buy more and send the rest. Everyone that helped donate to this trip be checking your mailboxes! Mail will be coming soon!
After our walk back we quickly jumped into the bus and headed to Breakdance Project Uganda. It is a center where breakdance, hip, hop, youth development, and community events take place. Maybe some have seen or watched the film Bouncing Cats, anyway the movie is about the place we went. Look it up! We are going to a screening on Friday and meeting the star of the film (the founder of the project) there.
The space where the dance classes are held are outside. It is literally a long two story building with a basketball court in front to one side, a large yard of dirt and some grass, a driveway, and a cement covered patio. All of these places I just listed are the locations of different classes. I took beginning break dance on the cement covered patio. Other NYU students chose to sit on the grass and learn beat boxing, some learned a hip hop combo on the driveway, and some a pop and lock combo in the yard. All of the classes are going on simultaneously with one speaker looping through 2-3 different songs so everyone can hear.
One man started the warm up and introduced all of us and then started to call on different individuals to lead warm up for the whole group. I was chosen to start to warm up the torso and spine. What a CRAZY experience to be directing, and learning at this center. It sits on a busy street so just on the other side of the tall fence wrapped in barbed wire and gate was a lot of foot and car traffic. Also you could look down the hill a little and see part of the skyline of downtown Kampala. I couldn't and still can't believe I was learning break dance at this incredible location in the heart of Kampala, Uganda, in the heart of Africa. The goals of this center are:
- Bridging the gap between people of different backgrounds
- Building young peoples' leadership skills and self esteem
- Promoting positive social responsibility and social action
- Increasing access to formal and informal education
- Generating employment opportunities
- Connecting local and international artists.
I received a flyer from there with the above bullets listed and a website to visit for more info: www.bpuevents.org Also, you could watch the movie. While we were in class there were people of all ages and background. Literally I learned the 6-step from an 8 year old girl. These little children were taking our class with us and killing it! I was loving every minute of it and by the looks of it so were they! We all had so much fun and were laughing pretty much throughout. The teacher of the class, named Mark, also paused the learning to play a game and give our minds and bodies a break. I couldn't believe it when he was teaching it because it was a game I had learned and played from Mabingo! I totally felt like a local knowing this game already especially since some Ugandans had never played.
After our class we had some time to walk around and take photos and talk to people. I met two really nice guys and we talked about dance, obviously. It turns out one of them teaches salsa every Sunday near the National Theater and invited us to come and try. I made sure to invite them to our performance next Friday and we exchanged Facebook names before having to leave.
Once again at the end of the day I was exhausted and starving. We decided to eat dinner downstairs at the Fang Fang restaurant for Chinese. It was absolutely delicious food. Also, it is our assistant director of the program, Sarah's, birthday so we sent ice cream to her and Deb's table. We also decided to get dessert and tried the chocolate ice cream and fried banana and honey. Not what you would expect, but still delicious!
I am ready for bed and another busy today tomorrow. I am starting to get really sad thinking about leaving this place, which is crazy since it is still so far away. I just know I will try everything to find a way to come back again someday. We have gotten so close to our teaching friends and I will be so sad to leave all of them.
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