Day 2

Langa

7/2/09
Being an observer and visitor somewhere does not mean that you need to have immediate feelings or reactions to experiences and sites that you have seen; regardless of how discomforting, jarring or challenging to our own baggage we bring. With that being said, I’m not going to editorialize today by saying how meaningful or upsetting it was because I’m not quite sure how I feel yet.
We visited the LEAP school campus today where we will be partnering over the next two months. The school choir who sang us several traditional songs as well as the LEAP school song greeted us. Many different performances followed including a drum circle and gumboot dancers. Afterwards, we were all engaged in an African drumming lesson (I know I said I wouldn’t insert opinion…but this was super cool!). We then were assigned to four to five student ambassadors who gave us a tour of the school grounds.
After lunch we all packed into the buses with some former LEAP students who currently act as student teachers to the current LEAP students to visit the Langa Township where most of the students live.