Student performances, Isilimela

          Students knew we were going to Table Mountain yesterday, so when we teachers arrived with the vans, students were already outside their homes waiting, at 7:30. I can tell you it's not been like that other days. But they were right to be excited: the sky was cloudless and no tablecloth draped the mountain; students could reach two separate coastlines and a whole geography of living--township versus city versus suburb, all against the high contrast of crag and blue. From the gondola on the way down, students sang "In the Fog, a song by Aisling Doyle, HFB 2017. The song ends, "And I love you... I love you guys!" The love was returned.

          Back at Isilimela, the learners were supposed to have watched a 20 minute video about Amy Biehl and forgiveness, and because most did not have this prepared nor had they communicated trouble with the video until today, Mimi called her students the best best best best best worst students in the world and demanded they set a better example. The result, though, was poignant: students lay down on the stage, crowded like sunbursts around phones RHS head to Isilimela head, focused together on a central but intimate point about race, anger, and forgiveness.
          Today, students performed three shows for Isilimela. They had been stressed about this event because the many snow days stole their every opportunity to plan, orchestrate and rehearse their performance (though not stressed enough, for many of them, to memorize their autobiographical "Where I am from" poems, though they did finally learn them in time for today). Tessa did a bang-up job organizing the structure and sequence of the show, and then led again as the MC and examplar of energy, which might account for her looking passed out shortly after the third and final performance.
          They sang "Music of Healing" and "Lean on Me," but also "Country Roads," which worried me from the start because students were so kitschy and goofy-loud when they first sang for us teachers--when the song calls for an unironic nostalgia--but perhaps today it was their best song: sweet, longing, and joyful.

           Elias, Morgan, Reese, and Tessa did a skit about Seattle--polite and frustrated at intersections, ready for coffee on any corner. Grace, Maddie, and Whitney demonstrated what class is like at Roosevelt: "I dismiss you--not the bell." Alea, Dani, Mel, and Natalia how difficult it is to wrangle a family dinner together, and how nice when it happens. Ray, Mel, and Stella presented the delights and misery of hiking in the Pacific Northwest, with some excellent physical comedy and full group participation as rain (that, somehow, was actually wet, especially for Ray). And Sarah, Coen and Zanzi led a full audience participation clapping cheer that Isilimela laughed themselves through.
          Q. & A. generated the following questions from their audience: What are your ages? What are differences between Isilimela and Roosevelt, between South Africa and the USA? Do students have cars? How are you punished? What has President Trump done to improve America? What South African dishes do you like most? Why are you here? Why does the president want to build a wall? What's the economy like in the United States? Do students smoke weed