vicki, 18 Apr 2009 23:50 hours
Oshakati, Namibia Happy Hearts I leave Oshakati tomorrow for Windhoek, driving through the national park (I couldn’t come to Namibia and not see an elephant). It has been a busy week as Doris has taken me around all the classes she is running. I am tired – and we have a car. Normally she does this by taxi, and the taxis are not door to door here but shared from central point to central point, so she has to walk carrying drums, costumes and music, and through the heat and sand. The number of classes she is running has grown considerably as have the numbers in the classes. In one centre she has 160 children – and when she tells them to be quiet they listen to her powerful voice. She manages them by breaking them into smaller groups and having the more experienced lead the less experienced.
The schools increasingly want her to come in and run classes so now she offers to train up the teachers to take over. In one school the girls danced under the trees, kicking up the sand until the air was thick with dust. We visited a rural school were the whole school turned out to greet her. Mama Africa they called out to her, singing the song she had taught them as we left.
We go to a private school, a kindergarten where the kids speak Afrikaans and these pre-schoolers dance and sing their little hearts out. Doris insists English is spoken in her classes and it helps the children with their counting, left and right and body parts. In a country were the kids are taught in English from grade 4 and yet often only speak English in the classroom everything helps.
We visit a community centre where the co-ordinator for the orphans and vulnerable children tells me that the children have happy hearts from the dance class. He talks of one small boy who would not speak or join in anything and who will only join in Doris’s class – and smiles .
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