Posts Tagged ‘choir’

Mr. Zumba is a very busy man throughout the year, but especially at Christmas.  Mr. Zumba, the music teacher at St. Clare, works hard teaching music to his students. Mr. Zumba also wrote the St. Clare anthem, which the girls sing each day and has been at St. Clare for some time, perhaps the longest. However, Mr. Z also doubles as the choir director of the parish choir at St. Rita, which is made up of students from St. Clare and St. Francis as well as parishioners from the village of Nchiru.

This is just another way in which the St. Clare staff give to the community of Nchiru.

In the picture, Mr. Z is pulling out all the stops, giving it his best by combining dance and song, extremely important parts of African culture.

The children in the Children’s Village in Nchiru have a multitude of abilities, including wonderful musical talents.  The boys from St. Francis and the girls from St. Clare learned to sing and dance as very small children and these young people are great! Several of the children have become involved with the parish choir at St.Rita in Nchiru.  These children are giving back their talents to the community and also interacting with folks from the local Nchiru village community.

Being with their own peers everyday is fine, but joining the parish choir is proving these children a chance to be with other adults and youth.  It is clearly a WIN-WIN situation. 

In the photos, the choir members from St. Francis and St. Clare are interspersed with the adult choir members.  The children are wearing their white uniform shirts as they clearly contribute to the musical celebration.

When we built the septic tank we thought we were only building a sewage system to protect the children from cholera. Many of the children from St. Clare and St. Francis are members of the parish choir.  Clever and creative, the parish choir found another use for the top of the huge septic tank. It is a STAGE for their songs and dances.

One of the exciting skills of the Kenyan people centers on their remarkable songs and dances. Kenyans learn songs and dance steps as children and they break into dance at every celebration.

The dance is always slow and rhythmic and usually performed to the beat of a drum.

Notice the men with their hands over their heads holding a rectangular box. This box contains seeds, carefully placed in a rectangular box and when shaken in a skilled manner gives forth a unique sound.

So drums and seeds are the background music for the performance.   Broadway has nothing on the wonderful singers and dancers from the parish and from St. Clare and St. Francis Schools!

The girls at St. Clare have the best seat in the house!