Play at Chriss Nissen Primary School

Hi All

Last Thursday a group of us went to see a performance at Chris Nissen Primary School in the Township. It was a musical developed by the students, teachers and some of the Traveller's Volunteers called Live It Up.

The basic story was of a young girl going to the big city to seek better opportunitiesj in her life after her mother died. The moral of the story is that education is the key to success and the way to better your lot in life. Along the way there were messages warning against getting involved in crime and prostitution. You might think that perhaps this might have come across as corny or trite but that was not the case at all.

The students put such energy into their performances that you really got into the musical. The dancing was superb, as was the singing and acting. There was real talent there that night. We all clapped like mad at the end of the performance as they fully deserved recognition for their achievement.

Also on Thursday of last week we had a special assembly at the school. Assembly is held outside as there is no school hall as yet. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the students sang very well in Xhosa. This is a wonderful experience, listening to them all in full song and I hope to get a recording at some stage. We had vistors at the Assembly who were Christian volunteers who had come to talk to the children about Christ and about giving their lives to Christ. One of the accounts by one of the visitors was very passionately told and the students were invited to give themselves over to Christ at the end of session. I was interested to witness this but at the same time I could see that not everyone wholeheartedly felt comfortable with the process.

St Dominic's is on half term this week in Belfast so I have not heard much from the learners there. The students start their end of year exams here at Percy Mdala in a day or two so I am not sure how my timetable will change or how easy it will be to get 8A and 8B engaged in the project once the exams are over. We shall see.

Last week I did meet up with the 5 students from 8B who will be using the Digital camera and we had a lesson on how to use the camera. At the end of the day I gave the camera to a student called Mantini who lives in the town. The idea was that he should do a sort of Day in the Life of and record aspects of his life at home. Mantini came up trumps and I now have lots of pictures and some text. I just need to put them together and send them to both St Dominic's and to the BBC website.

Enough for now I think.
All the best and do send in some posts.