Same Ol’ Bujumbura 2 Step, and Other Dances

No, not a modern dance, just the little girls climbing the walls waiting for the beginning of their dance recital for their parents.

I want to give a short update about the very blessed weekend we had as we are starting into a new set of events tomorrow.  There were two special end of year activities involving dance that were hosted by Rebecca and I.  The first happened this past Friday and was the final ballet recital for the girls I have been teaching over the past year.

I have heard parenthood changes a man, but I still marvel at the sense of patience I have developed in teaching a weekly ballet class to two groups of children:  One from kids 4-7 and the second from 8-14.  I never considered myself a kids' teacher when I was dancing professionally.  Truth be told I think I saw it as kind of a cop out.  Not true anymore, I have enjoyed watching the slow but steady progress of these kids improve in the form, and on Friday both groups did extremely well when they performed for their parents and friends.

Fortunately the logistics went relatively well, although when I arrived an hour early I did find that the lock on the door to the studio, which has worked perfectly the whole year, was broken the day before and the key was unusable.  I spent 15 mortified minutes trying to track down a custodian who could help me but happily did succeed in finding someone with a key to the second door and was able to get in and set up. 

Everyone was on time and no one was sick.  The little girls did 4 dances along with some barre exercises.  The big girls did about 6 dances including a modified version of the little swan pas de six from Swan Lake.  They were stellar.  I have quite a few good pictures of them but here are a few.

Friday evening our service workers Melody and Teri-Lynn arrived from upcountry.  They were down for the weekend to join us in our Offering of the Arts and Folk Dance Party.   This is the second time Rebecca and I have hosted such an event.  We do try to have 2 to 3 folk dances per year, but this past Christmas we also invited people to bring something else to share—visual art, poetry, songs, music, dance, etc. It was a great success.  This time we invited a huge number of people and anticipated a very large turn out as this is also another opportunity to see some friends who are leaving town for good.

Preparing for this event meant moving everything out of the living room so we could use it for dancing.  We also set up the porch as a kind of performance space with an area for singing or playing music and chairs arranged to allow everyone to see.  There was also a potluck planned afterwards so we arranged the dining room as a kind of buffet area.  It is quite a transformation of the house, but we are getting pretty good at it.

Guests began arriving at 4 and we were a very large group by 5.  We began with some musical offerings by children before giving the adults a chance.  Simon Guillebaud contributed an excellent storytelling done almost entirely in Spoonerisms.  Fortunately most of the audience was Anglophones because it was hilarious but probably incomprehensible to a non-English speaker. 

The height of the musical offerings was an early music quartet that Rebecca has been singing with a when they can schedule a meeting together.  It is comprised of a tenor and soprano from the UN, Rebecca is the alto and the bass is one of teachers at the Ecole Belge.  They sung 3 very beautiful works acapella.  It was a real treat to hear Rebecca singing early music again for me.
Jodi Mikalachki was in attendance as well and she did two spirited Kirundi wedding songs. 

After the singing we moved into the ‘ballroom’ where Teri-Lynn Jordan, our SALTer performed a dance that I had set on her.  It was a solo to the music “Gracias a la Vida”.  I collaged some text from her blog read by her to give an impression of her time in Burundi working in a rural school--the joys and challenges.  Although we only had 2 rehearsals, she danced it fabulously and it was very much appreciated by those in attendance.  I will try to post a copy of it on this blog later.

There were several visual art contributions, Oren’s minotaur head and battleax, some Lego dioramas, and a wall hanging by Melody, one of our service workers.

After the dance by Teri-Lynn we began the folk dancing.  I added several more line dances this time as they seem to be very appreciated by the kids.  We did the ever popular Cotton Eyed Joe, but also added some soul with the Same Ol’ 2 Step and the Zydeco Slide.  We ended with a very lively square dance that went surprisingly well as it was a somewhat complicated figure.

By that time people were hungry so we moved on to dinner.  There was plenty of food and we enjoyed talking together into the evening.  The party ended fairly early as we had started in the afternoon and by 8pm everyone had left.  Clean up took about an hour with the help of Jodi, who hung around a bit, as well asTeri-Lynn, and Melody. 

Jodi helping with clean-up afterwards.

It was nice to sit around afterwards and reflect on the pleasure one receives from putting a lot creative effort into something and seeing it realized.  I know from my experience as a performing artist, that if one does not create an opportunity for performance, creative projects rarely come to fruition.  It was so worth it to put time and energy into singing, choreographing, designing, rehearsing, to be able to bring it all together and enjoy the results.

It is also such a pleasure to bring our community together to interact in interesting ways.  We are a diverse group of ex-pats here, serving in so many different ways.  It is very special to come together and interact in creative and supportive ways outside of our specific callings here.

As if that was not enough, Sunday was also a very special day.  It began at church where Emmanuel Ndikumana, the founder of our church and a prophetic voice in Burundi gave a profoundly challenging message about how we can be the church here--meaningfully engaged politically, but embracing our members, tutsi, and hutu, who may find themselves on opposite sides of many issues in this context.  This especially includes some of the recent transitional justice attempts which may reopen old wounds.

Recently a land redistribution commission,  CNTB which claims to be working to return lands stolen during the 1972 massacre of Hutus has made some very controversial decisions and there has been some rioting as a result in Bujumbura.  The two sides of the issue tend to divide along ethic lines.

Emmanuel used 1 Kings 18: 1-16 brilliantly to make his point.  In the passage we see two prophets, Elijah who has been in exile living in poverty--a man wanted by the state, meeting Obadiah who has been  a trusted steward in the government of the murderous King Ahab.  Both are described as having taken huge risks to serve God in their own domains.  But from outward appearances they would seem to be completely at odds with each other.  Perhaps one might accuse Obadiah of being a lackey, but that is clearly not the case as he used his position to secretly protect many prophets who were being massacred.

Emmanuel noted that in his opinion, God does put Christians on both sides of an issue because His purposes are always greater than ours.  For Emmanuel, the church is the place where Obadiah and Elijah can come and meet together, and be supported in the work they are doing.

It was an enlightened message and well received.  I think it would be an important lesson for many of our politically divided churches in the US.  We ended with communion which was very appropriate.

older girls 'backstage at the ballet'

After church we went out as family to Bora Bora, a beach club we have never gone to, and enjoyed time with the kids, who were feeling a bit neglected.  It was a very nice afternoon.

Oren has had it particularly hard the past week because he is in the midst of revising for his comprehensive year end exams.  I am amazed at seeing this task that he has before him as a second grader.  We in the US are so used to continuous evaluation in our schools that I do not think, as a student, I took a comprehensive test until AP chemistry in 12^th grade.

Here in the Belgian system, nothing he has done up to now--all his dictées, homework assignments, etc. count for anything if he cannot perform well on these tests.  Math seems fine but grammar is a real challenge.  We have had to, at times, force him to sit down and do many pages of revision to prepare.  Hopefully he will be able to do it when it matters.  In the long run, I guess it will in some way prepare him for College.

 Bonus Videos:  

1) Singing group:

 2) Teri-Lynn's dance: