Posts Tagged ‘music’

The girls at St. Clare Centre for Girls love to recite poetry, tell stories, sing and dance.  They especially enjoy doing it when visitors arrive and also when visitors leave, especially if the visitors have been with the girls for a period of time.  The American teachers were ending their stay at St. Clare at the end of February, so the girls planned a final farewell for them.  The younger girls recited poems and acted out stories.  The girls in class 7 were competing the next day in a drama competition, so they presented their piece.  Classes 5 and 6 had studied the skeletal system and so each group sang and danced one verse of “These Bones, These Bones, These Dry Bones.” Form Three sang a song they had learned about the American Civil Rights’ Movement, “We Shall Overcome.”

HOWEVER, the American teachers were not to be outdone.  They too had planned a performance.  They began singing and “shaking” to  “Alabama, Mississippi,” based on what some of these teachers had taught to the secondary students.  From there they sang, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”  As they sang, they brought St. Clare’s administrators up on the stage.  They then surprised St. Clare’s teachers and brought them up.  By the time they had finished, all the adults were singing and clapping as were the children.  It was a wonderful experience for all.

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.