So Long, Farewell, Kwaheri and Goodbye!

Saturday was the much anticipated Tenwek Fine Arts Festival. This is an event where the Missionary Kids who homeschool really get to shine. They are bright kids and the moms here to an amazing job of giving them an excellent education.

These 5 months I have been here, I have been giving a ballet class every Thursday afternoon. I have 6 students ages 4-9. The girls have absolutely loved it, and so have I! I taught them the basic positions of the arms and feet, and a few other beginning ballet skills. The girls like the ballet, but what they really look forward to is the last 15 minutes of class when we have fun dancing to songs like the Duck Dance, Hokey Pokey, etc.

I choreographed a dance to Over the Rainbow for them to perform at Fine Arts. They all pooled together what pink tu-tus and things they had, and they ended up looking like a real little dance group! They loved putting their hair up in a bun, and some of them even wore a little make-up! What more fun could a little girl possibly have? They did a great job and opened up the Fine Arts Festival beautifully.

I volunteered to be in charge of this year's Fine Arts Festival, even though I had never been to this event before! I heard the buzz word "fine art" and I was in! The families here have been doing this for years, but only recently has it been held in the newest wing of the hospital where there is a beautiful glass atrium shaped like Kenya and an auditorium meeting the US standards.

There are about 13 kids ages 5-13 homeschooled here at Tenwek. The older brothers and sisters go to Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school about 3 hours away. For that reason I really have not gotten to know the high schoolers very well. But, the younger ones I have grown to love! They all had the opportunity to present something in the program. It was a variety of music and recitation. Wil hammed it up with a poem called A Tragic Story.

A few students recited scripture from just one verse for the kindergartener, to the whole first chapter of James for the middle schooler. A couple students played the piano for us as well.

I even involved the students who were not in the program by having them run the sound, and move the piano on and off stage. Of course I even rehearsed the piano going on and off stage as much as I rehearsed any other act! No detail is too small!

For our finale, I got the kids who were interested together and prepared the song So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music. The kids had a great time learning the actions and even having a small solo each. We did it very similar to the movie, except we changed a couple of lyrics including substituting Auf wiedersehn for Kwaheri, which is "goodbye" in Swahili.

The hills of Tenwek have been "alive with the sound of music" these past couple of weeks leading up to the festival. The kids would all get together to watch the movie and you would hear that song being hummed many times. What fun!

For the ones whose skills are not in performing, they were able to show off by setting up a booth in the Atrium. The kids presented art projects, writing assignments, and anything else that they accomplished during the school year. We all milled around and asked the kids questions, and they were more than happy to tell us all about how hard they worked on their projects.

Of course this was right up my alley, and a blast for me to be involved with. Unfortunately my learning curve was too large to completely relieve the other moms, but I did organize what happened on stage including rehearsals, sound, and making sure the kids dressed up! If only I were going to be here next year... I already have ideas!

It was a great evening for all the Missionaries to get together, celebrate the end of the school year, and just love on the kids. We all brought a snack to share and James even made his special lattes!

Liam was mostly interested in just getting dirty on the ground and exploring a new place. Logan and I kind of switched places this weekend because I was at the hospital setting up and rehearsing most of Friday and Saturday, while he was feeding, changing, and playing with Liam. I think Liam didn't mind having a couple Daddy Days though! Things are always more fun with DaDa!