the village's San Youth Cultural Group to participate in
a cultural dance competition. It is a obviously a year later
and it is that the time is going by so quickly. Hard to
believe that it's been a year.
Just as last year the majority of the contestants were
from the Mbukushu tribe. In fact, every other group
was Mbukushu and our group was the only San group
that performed at this event.
In the picture you are looking at a Mbukushu group.
I think that there are from a high school in the area.
I choose this picture because the girl that you see
dancing was also in our choir music DVD we made
last February. She was visiting her sister in our village
at the time we came up with the idea to make the
music DVD.
It was actually considerably better this year than last.
Not only was the area that they held the competition a
better choice our San group actually bested their last
year's effort.
The Mbukushu have a distinctive dance style which
utilizes a lot of shoulder movement. It is really nice to see
and for a person like me, exciting.
The San on the other hand have a style of dancing drastically
different than the Mbukushu and instead of a lot of shoulder
movement they have a lot of leg and hip movement. Our
group received a lot of attention and applause and not only
did they perform well but their dance style attracted
a bit of attention.
I went along as the picture taker/video clip guy and this
year's video will also have improved from last year's.
We did this year in a different way. Instead of just filming
the dance section like we did last year we kind of made
a mini documentary of the day. We took random
interview clips. Things like, what are you doing today? ...
answer ... we're going to a dance competition. Also,
what are you doing now? ... answer ... we are waiting
for the driver to put air in the tire but we don't know
if the pump will work ... and so on. It was kind of good.
It was all done except for the closing remarks in
this San's Tribal language ... Khwedam. There are 5
San languages if I remember right.
Also, for me it was a better as I now know all the
people as opposed to last year when at the time I
was new and unknown. I have to say that it was just
so much fun and a lot of laughs with the group.
The result was that the group placed third and qualified
for the regional competition in September or October.
To change the subject ... we made another video the
other day. This one addressed teenage pregnancy and
in the village it is about impossible to find a girl that is
16 or 17 years old who doesn't have a child, really.
The idea of the video was not to say, never have a
child. Just wait till your around 23 instead of 13 years
old.
I just burned the movie on a blank DVD this evening
but I had a lady look at it first and she said that the
video told the story as it is. We tried to put a counter
logic to the existing one that results in all these young
girls having babies a bit too soon. Hopefully it will
make sense to these youngsters and maybe affect
one or two.The thing I like is that it the logic is told
by Namibians to Namibians. In my experience it is
the best way. It's more than just language, it is the
language of the culture that people understand the
most. But I do put my two cents in and together
we make it happen.
Also, the drama group themselves are just improving
immensely. They are becoming good little actors and
the group works on the story as a co-operative effort.
It is a true team effort and I am feeling good about
how this has evolved.
Well, that is about it for now.
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