Our Langa Welcome

 

              The many close greetings we have received since arriving only a short while ago are enough to tip our world view:

              Last night we gathered in Mama Dozi‘s living room around two couches and platters of fruit and our sixteen students were enclosed body to body in a safety and warmth of neighborhood matriarchs.

              This morning we pulled out of our vans in the Isilimela parking lot to a parade of Hands for a Bridge learners singing and holding a banner of welcome and signs with individual names, until Ms. Mimi brought us together in a circle for more song and step, all of us together in a circle, Ms. Mimi’s 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, some in English, some in Xhosa, 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 that is above all community.

              All around us is a buzz of nervous excitement and shy looks and whispers, so when we can join in music and movement, we can say thank you; we can say, There is nowhere on Earth we would rather be.

              The Isilimela Comprehensive School’s principal welcomed us in the assembly with the promise that they would all strive to make us want to stay. They have succeeded.