I forgot to mention this--my new Zulu name (the one I got from my new coworkers upon switching sites) is S'thembile Hadebe (Hadebe is my surname) or S'the for short. It means "we trust you"...anyways...
Today at the end of my workday I ambled out into the sunshine and over to the conference room where a group of about 40 children had gathered. They were sitting in a circle and singing and clapping. I had just walked into a good-old traditional Zulu dance-off. Haha, not really, but it kind of seems like that. The kids were just having a good time, doing traditional dancing. Ahhh, if only in my culture children would randomly come together and dance and sing at random to amuse themselves in large, random groups. The closest I can think of this is break dancing. However, usually the break-dance experts aren’t 8-12 year olds, like they were here. So the kids took their turns coming to the circle and dancing. A couple of them were really skilled and kept coming in again and again to show off their moves. One of them was doing one of the courting dances and kept motioning for me to join him in the circle to dance with him. Ahhh, the joys of being hit on by a 10 year old. Actually, it was really hilarious. And according to the reactions from the kids (and my coworkers) it was apparently one of the funniest things they had ever seen. People kept telling me that I should go in the middle and dance. I politely said no, but promised that if someone actually taught me some Zulu moves and I had a better chance of not making a fool out of myself (only a little bit of an ass I can be OK with) and therefore I would try it out. Hmmm we will see how that goes. I will keep you posted. So to see what I am talking about—go to YouTube and look up traditional Zulu dancing. Those videos will probably be people in traditional costumes; however, I would say my experience rivals them. I will never get tired of seeing 10 year olds break it down. This experience made me very happy. I can't wait to start my youth group! These kids are awesome.
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4 comments:
I think there's a You Got Served joke to be made here somewhere, but I think I'm tired of making those. I feel like I've grown as a person.
You sure can learn alot from You Tube, heh, heh, heh. So I went there, to traditional zulu dancing, and got a video to accompany your excellent word picture. There is a video there of ten-to-twelve-year-old boys -- about 4 or 5 of them -- dancing in a road. It IS alot like break dancing. Thanks for your beautiful description.
If I were to go to South Africa, the first thing I would want to learn more about would be music of South Africans. I like when you tell us about people just singing for fun, and dancing for fun.
i wanna be thereeeeeeeeee
what a great, great post. i love their name for you, and i love the image of their dancing.....wonderful, wonderful stuff.....
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