It's been the most amazing experience and I'm less than 24 hours into it. I've always felt a bit odd that Africa didn't feel as foreign to me as I thought it would, but today - today I gained a peep into the true voice and face of Africa through the singing and drumming and dancing that went on in the bus. The energy was just incredible, and I felt this tremendous sense of gratitude and disbelief that I was given the opportunity to witness this and be a part of it. The other counselors are very friendly and open. I've noticed that Westerners in general are much more reserved with strangers and much less warm than what I've experienced here. If I was on a bus full of Western counselors, we'd probably all be making polite chitchat with each other, generating a low buzz, not the hand-clapping drum-beating toe-tapping singing-and-dancing I saw today. Plus, the ability to improv is amazing. I can see the roots of hiphop and rap in the singing of these Africans - many generations and an ocean removed from African Americans, but sharing still the beats that are the foundation of their music. And the improv, oh God the improv. None of the music I heard today was scripted or practiced before. It was all done on-the-fly. Words cannot describe how incredible it was and I can't help but feel like I'm doing it a gross injustice by even trying to describe it. Even as someone who doesn't have African roots, I can feel the beats resonating in my body, as if it was speaking to me on a more primal human level that race doesn't even approach. Africa is the motherland after all. I find it interesting that a lot of African sayings are similar to ours. "You can see a rose. With thorns. Or you can see the thorns. With a rose." The majority of the counselors are from Soweto. There are 7 different cultural groups there and 7 different languages. This means that most Soweto inhabitants know all 7 languages plus an eighth one of "street talk" which is a mixture of the 7. Plus English. It makes you wonder who's really more educated.
One of the counselors gave me an African name. Palesa. Which means flower. Being 1 of 5 girls at a boys' camp means I get a lot of attention I'm sure I don't deserve. Am too tired to write more. Feeling incoherent.
