I've officially been working full-time here for three weeks. Over that time, I've thought about how I could have prepared myself more for this position. After much thought and reflection, I've realized that I wish I had studied Usher's music videos, perhaps taken some voice lessons...
Now, I know this seems strange or irrelevant. But, a large part of the GRS culture is dancing and singing. For instance, on my first day at Skillz Street, to introduce myself to everyone, I was asked to stand in the middle of the circle of 100 girls and dance for about 30 seconds. But, don't worry, all 100 girls plus coaches were singing so that I had a beat to dance to. I got a pretty big confidence boost watching all the girls laugh at me - an ungraceful mlungu (white person) - as I tried to dance.
Another memorable moment was when I was at a local school in Khayelitsha doing a Coach Support Visit. I was sitting in the classroom with about 40 kids, and Asia, the coach, started the lesson with a singing energizer that I had never heard before. He started singing, and I was getting into the song, because it had a really good rhythm, but I couldn't figure out what the words were. Suddently, Asia started to single out students to sing the chorus (but he was speaking in Xhosa, the local language, when he called people out). I was looking around the room, observing how engaged all the kids were, when I heard Asia say my name. When I turned my head, Asia's finger was pointing at me from across the room, along with every kid's head in the classroom. I turned bright red and started speaking gibberish that I thought sounded like the words of the song. Asia and all the kids were laughing. Later, I learned the words: "Ooooh, our learning goes on, our learning goes on, our learning gooo-oooes on...". I think I said something along the lines of "ooooh our laaanding on, our landinggg on, our landing it goooess on.."
