Cultural Exchange Night

Laurel's school (Burke's) has an exchange program with a school here in Cape Town, where every year two Burke's teachers come to South Africa to teach, and two South African teachers visit Burke's.  It just so happened that Laurel's fourth grade teacher Ms. Brooks was here on exchange, and Sue arranged for us to come to a "Cultural Exchange" night at the school.

After getting lost with the cabbie, we finally found the Leap School just outside of Cape Town.  This is a high school, with maybe 40 students, where they learn, and also are trained as teachers.  Most if not all come from the townships.  The goal is for these students to become well educated, and bring their knowledge back to their townships to help others.  They are selected for their intelligence, as well as their leadership ability.

We didn't know exactly what to expect, so we kind of went with the flow.  The students started first, and did some amazing singing and dancing for us.  It's like these kids were professional musicians, singers and dancers, but it obviously came naturally for them.  We were all mesmerized by their talent and spirit.

Next, it was our turn. There were some other Americans besides us, including one man in his thirties that used to teach at my old high school.  One woman named Kay did an impressive spoken word poetry performance. I went next, and showed off some of my poi juggling moves, getting one of the students to drum for me.  Bryce even went up and showed off some moves as well. We got a great ovation - it was obvious these kids had never seen poi before. Afterwards, some of them asked to be taught some moves, and I happily obliged.  They also made us a traditional dinner of a beef stew with some interesting and tasty grains.

Laurel was particularly impressed by Kay's spoken word performance, and she sought out Kay after to ask her more about writing, performing, and how she got over her shyness with sharing her work.

All in all, it was a great evening.