Circus Tents and Dance Skills

Today was quite a busy and long day, but a great day! I met the kids from Mobile Music Academy today for the first time. They are amazing kids and incredibly talented. They were so excited to have me there and so anxious to show off their talents and learn new things, especially the piano! There is one boy, Basil, who is 13 and has an unbelievable singing voice. Its hard to explain exactly how good this boy is, except to say that when he first started singing today, my mouth literally dropped open! He is so talented, with dancing and rhythm and of course singing, and picks up everything so quickly. I spent some time with him one-on-one today showing him some things on the piano. He is so anxious to learn! They're are so much fun and all have so much talent and potential. It was an exciting morning!

This afternoon, we (the Living Hope volunteers) helped the mission team here from Knoxville with a big outreach event in own of the coloured townships, Mountain View. 'Coloured' is the proper term used here for people who are of mixed race. But we set up a huge circus type tent on a big field just outside the township and split up the almost 150 kids into 4 groups and the groups rotated around stations. There were 4 stations: crafts, a puppet show, sports and games and face painting. There was also some blood pressure checks and other health related things for the parents there. We served them dinner and and showed Veggie Tales movies after dinner for those who wanted to stay. It was a lot of fun, and the kids and parents both seemed to really enjoy it. I got two big hugs from a mother and grandmother who stopped me as I walked by just to say "thank you for doing this"!

Last night, we all went to the fundraiser ball in the Ocean View, another coloured township. The ball was put on by the church as a fundrasier and also as something fun and positive for the people of the community to do. It was 'formal evening wear' so everyone was dressed up and wearing all the "bling" the could. It was kinda like church dinner/small highschool prom. It was great fun though. We volunteers dressed up as much as we could and were the only white people there, which didn't matter, cause they loved us being there! After dinner they called out ticket numbers and if your number was called you had to go to the front. The announced that we were to have a dance competition. Myself and another volunteer, Danielle (a 32 school teacher from Nashville) were called and partnered up. They were playing some good ol' Boys 2 Men and other R&B. Danielle and I basically did all the cheesy American moves we knew, including the "shopping cart" and just had fun making fools of ourselves. But, it paid off...cause we won! There were 3 of these dance offs and we one the second one. Each winning couple was awarded with a very delicious chocolate bar. It was a great time!

Today was 82 and sunny and a perfectly clear day. Unfortunately the weather here changes extremely quickly and a cold front has come through and tomorrow will be 58, very rainy with 30 mph winds. Oh well.

The ball last night was just proof that cheesy American dance moves really do pay off!