I don’t think many (if any) white people get to spend the whole day as we did today, experiencing the Xhosa culture performed by the children of this region.
We were so lucky to have been invited to the interschool Arts and Culture Festival which took place in Centani. The trip there took an hour on the bad dirt road with 3 of us in the front of a bakkie and about 15 kids squashed in the back, with their props and costumes on their laps. The rest followed in 2 more crammed bakkies. Everyone, us included, was super excited. We piled out at a building with no toilets but the 1 000 or so participants and a dozen or so teachers didn’t seem to mind. In fact I don’t think they noticed. You lift your skirt and wee behind the building facing the back road. When in Rome.
The day was quite an emotional one for me. Most of the teachers were dressed in their traditional outfits and the cultural ambiance was quite something. The theme was Human Rights and the morning opened with various drama scenes acted out by the children depicting their rights to education, food, social services, freedom of choice of faith and marriage. I was quite moved to realise that what they were portraying was real for some of them. The short plays were all performed in English so we understood everything. Watching children act scenarios of being too poor to afford school clothes which denied them access to a school while their mother sat at home drinking out their government grant money, touched a sensitive note. Other plays were about orphaned children living with other family members and being abused. This was their lives for many I presume. I don’t really know what goes on in their homes but I do know that most come to school with clean but broken school clothes, many have shoes tied together with string, and when they queue for their samp and beams for lunch I often wonder if it’s the only meal for some?
Then the singing began. Those kids just sing so beautifully and when they do that pumping thing with their arms and shuffle their feet from side to side and their voices harmonise so beautifully I had to keep swallowing back a lump as their voices resonated though to my soul.
Then the angry poetry followed which we couldn’t understand but there was lots of viva South Africa and waving of sticks as they shouted their proclamations.
Late afternoon they performed their traditional Xhosa dancing and I sat on the edge of my seat, goose bumps all over as the dancers captivated me. It was just so wow. The girls danced bare breasted, wearing string skirts and beads around their necks and ankles and they kept a beat by clapping while others stomped and shuffled and kicked and I felt the music coursing through my body. Some danced to traditional music played through speakers while others kept a beat on a drum or banged on a bucket. One group even had a bucket with a wet plastic rope attached inside which they pulled hard and created a deep sound together with their drum. I was enthralled by them. The boys added whistles, kuduzelas, guitars, safety hats and tattered clothes combined with animal skins to their acts. They were amazing.
Then the dancing changed from girls dancing to their interpretation of older women dancing. Young girls show their breasts and wear flimsy skirts when they dance but older women wear colourful wraps and skirts with aprons as well as headgear. They shake their big backsides in a certain way which some of the girls did excellently. The teachers who ululated throughout the day at any acts which did well really belted their tongues cheering at these girls.
After the traditional dancing came the free style dancing and I was amazed to see the same children, girls who had just been dancing bare breasted on stage were now wearing jeans and T Shirts and shaking their pelvises to kwaito rhythms.
We arrived back in Qolora by the sea school at about 8 o clock that evening. It was already dark. The kids excitedly made their way home, barefoot, following foot paths in the dark to their homes scattered over the hillside. Theo and I had a good laugh as we too made our way home in the dark, camera over our shoulder and passed a man whistling along and carrying a pick axe over his. How different we were.
The day at the Arts and culture Festival was one I will never forget and I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to see the children perform their singing and dancing.
We were so lucky to have been invited to the interschool Arts and Culture Festival which took place in Centani. The trip there took an hour on the bad dirt road with 3 of us in the front of a bakkie and about 15 kids squashed in the back, with their props and costumes on their laps. The rest followed in 2 more crammed bakkies. Everyone, us included, was super excited. We piled out at a building with no toilets but the 1 000 or so participants and a dozen or so teachers didn’t seem to mind. In fact I don’t think they noticed. You lift your skirt and wee behind the building facing the back road. When in Rome.
The day was quite an emotional one for me. Most of the teachers were dressed in their traditional outfits and the cultural ambiance was quite something. The theme was Human Rights and the morning opened with various drama scenes acted out by the children depicting their rights to education, food, social services, freedom of choice of faith and marriage. I was quite moved to realise that what they were portraying was real for some of them. The short plays were all performed in English so we understood everything. Watching children act scenarios of being too poor to afford school clothes which denied them access to a school while their mother sat at home drinking out their government grant money, touched a sensitive note. Other plays were about orphaned children living with other family members and being abused. This was their lives for many I presume. I don’t really know what goes on in their homes but I do know that most come to school with clean but broken school clothes, many have shoes tied together with string, and when they queue for their samp and beams for lunch I often wonder if it’s the only meal for some?
Then the singing began. Those kids just sing so beautifully and when they do that pumping thing with their arms and shuffle their feet from side to side and their voices harmonise so beautifully I had to keep swallowing back a lump as their voices resonated though to my soul.
Then the angry poetry followed which we couldn’t understand but there was lots of viva South Africa and waving of sticks as they shouted their proclamations.
Late afternoon they performed their traditional Xhosa dancing and I sat on the edge of my seat, goose bumps all over as the dancers captivated me. It was just so wow. The girls danced bare breasted, wearing string skirts and beads around their necks and ankles and they kept a beat by clapping while others stomped and shuffled and kicked and I felt the music coursing through my body. Some danced to traditional music played through speakers while others kept a beat on a drum or banged on a bucket. One group even had a bucket with a wet plastic rope attached inside which they pulled hard and created a deep sound together with their drum. I was enthralled by them. The boys added whistles, kuduzelas, guitars, safety hats and tattered clothes combined with animal skins to their acts. They were amazing.
Then the dancing changed from girls dancing to their interpretation of older women dancing. Young girls show their breasts and wear flimsy skirts when they dance but older women wear colourful wraps and skirts with aprons as well as headgear. They shake their big backsides in a certain way which some of the girls did excellently. The teachers who ululated throughout the day at any acts which did well really belted their tongues cheering at these girls.
After the traditional dancing came the free style dancing and I was amazed to see the same children, girls who had just been dancing bare breasted on stage were now wearing jeans and T Shirts and shaking their pelvises to kwaito rhythms.
We arrived back in Qolora by the sea school at about 8 o clock that evening. It was already dark. The kids excitedly made their way home, barefoot, following foot paths in the dark to their homes scattered over the hillside. Theo and I had a good laugh as we too made our way home in the dark, camera over our shoulder and passed a man whistling along and carrying a pick axe over his. How different we were.
The day at the Arts and culture Festival was one I will never forget and I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to see the children perform their singing and dancing.
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