Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Just call me a professional. . . tribal dancer

I know that you have probably all been waiting with great anticipation to hear how the dancing went. To sum it up, it went absolutely fantastic.  We worked all day yesterday on engineering stuff and then had a short rehearsal in the afternoon.  About half an hour before the program was set to begin, the girls all came up to our room and told us to report down to their dorm for costume and make up.  In no time at all we had 10 girls hovering over us, doing our hair, putting on make up and fitting our costumes and talking to each other in super fast Hindi to try and decide the best combination of make up/costume/jewellery. It was so much fun.  They wanted us to wear about a million bangles each and they chose some huge green earrings for me to wear. 

The kids were all so excited that we were actually dancing in this program.  As we were walking from the girls dorm to the school we met the construction team.  Great first impression hey?  I was just hoping they would take our engineering skills seriously after seeing us in such crazy outfits.  And to make it even more hilarious, the army decided to show up as well.  Since the home is next to a military base, and the people there have been really good to the home, they decided to pay a friendly visit earlier in the afternoon.  If the high ranking generals didn’t think we were crazy enough then, I’m sure they really thought we were off our rockers when they saw us prancing around campus in costumes. They decided to come volunteer to dig up some flower beds at the same time as the program.  Thankfully they left before our performance.

One of my teammates has some amazing action photos of us dancing.  I'll post them when I get them from him probably not for another few days.  Internet has been really spotty and slow as well, so I might not be able to post them until I'm back to the eMi office.

I did ask someone to take video, however, I don't think they understood my instructions on how to film, and unfortunately all we ended up with was a short video of the floor and someone's arm pit.  We are trying to find out if anyone on the construction team took a video of us.  Hopefully they did.  The Canadians on the team kept on commenting on how they couldn't believe a bunch of engineers and architects could dance like that.  Tyler and my finale performance went really well too.  I think I have found a new appreciation for shaking my hips to Indian music.

I think the hardest part of leaving this place, will be the fact that I have been so much a part of it.  This morning I spoke at the kids morning meeting and when they announced me to come up, they told me they were so grateful I was speaking because I was part of their family.  It is kind of ironic, that I love this place so much, yet being here and loving this, also reminds me of the diversity of this world and how much I also love so many people in Uganda which in so many ways is so very different.

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for some action photos,

Jaimee


Getting ready for the big performance

 Don't we look authentic?

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