I
returned to Cape Town, South Africa, with the Hands for a Bridge program for the
first time since 2019. We received a welcome so warm our very world view began
to tip.
We arrived in Langa with our bags and gathered in Mama Dozi‘s cozy living room around two couches and platters of fruit and our sixteen students enclosed body to body in a safety and warmth of neighborhood matriarchs. The next morning, we arrived in the Isilimela Comprehensive School’s parking lot to a parade of Hands for a Bridge learners singing and holding a banner of welcome, Ms. Mimi bringing us together in a circle for more song and step, all of us together in a circle, her hand-mic encouraging volume and forming the spotlight. And then Monday assembly was moved to Tuesday, just for us, speakers filling the capacious hall with song as early-arriving learners welcomed American guests to a morning dance party until the hall was full with standing bodies, stepping, clapping, singing, harmony with the teacher on stage with her mic and full voice as she led us in prayer and song, words sometimes in English, sometimes in IsiXhosa, and all of it, such a tidal wash for us visitors: the joy, the song, so many collectively happy to sing and step together in school.
Already we see a different way of being and being together in learning community. We see what community can be.
All around us was a buzz of nervous excitement and shy looks and whispers, so when we could join in music and movement, we could say thank you; we could say, There is nowhere on Earth we would rather be.
The Isilimela principal welcomed us in the assembly with the promise that they would strive to make us want to stay. They succeeded.
We arrived in Langa with our bags and gathered in Mama Dozi‘s cozy living room around two couches and platters of fruit and our sixteen students enclosed body to body in a safety and warmth of neighborhood matriarchs. The next morning, we arrived in the Isilimela Comprehensive School’s parking lot to a parade of Hands for a Bridge learners singing and holding a banner of welcome, Ms. Mimi bringing us together in a circle for more song and step, all of us together in a circle, her hand-mic encouraging volume and forming the spotlight. And then Monday assembly was moved to Tuesday, just for us, speakers filling the capacious hall with song as early-arriving learners welcomed American guests to a morning dance party until the hall was full with standing bodies, stepping, clapping, singing, harmony with the teacher on stage with her mic and full voice as she led us in prayer and song, words sometimes in English, sometimes in IsiXhosa, and all of it, such a tidal wash for us visitors: the joy, the song, so many collectively happy to sing and step together in school.
Already we see a different way of being and being together in learning community. We see what community can be.
All around us was a buzz of nervous excitement and shy looks and whispers, so when we could join in music and movement, we could say thank you; we could say, There is nowhere on Earth we would rather be.
The Isilimela principal welcomed us in the assembly with the promise that they would strive to make us want to stay. They succeeded.
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