Music Festival!

Yesterday the kids participated in a Music Festival in Mosoriot!  We began our hike to Tachasis around 8am to catch the pick-up truck that was taking 36 students and 6 teachers (including us) to the Music Festival.  Now we were wondering how everyone would fit, but we of course believed that these Africans would make it work.  The girls climbed in the bed of the pick-up first and sat on benches (most of them had smaller girls sitting on their laps).  The boys then climbed in and stood in all the empty spaces (no worries, there were bars for them to hold on to J).  Once the children were packed in they worked on getting the teachers in.  Katy climbed into the front seat first, and then Susan sat on her lap.  Next Abbie crawled in next to Katy and I sat on Abbie’s lap.  Four people in the front seat! The two male teachers stood on the back bumper of the pick-up.  Be impressed including the driver we fit 43 people onto this pick-up!  About 5 to 10 minutes down the road they realized the pick-up could not handle the weight of all these people J.  So we stopped and got a lorry instead.  This time we sat all the kids in the trailer part of the lorry (it’s like a large u-haul truck).  Abbie, Katy, Susan, and I sat back there with the students while the male teachers sat in the front with the driver.  We had plenty of space, but we didn’t anticipate the amount of swaying we would feel on this ride.  These roads aren’t paved so they create quite an amusement park ride sensation.  About half way through the trip you could see some of the kids did not look well.  It was only a matter of time before there were kids throwing up all over the truck L.  We finally made it to Mosoriot…thank goodness, and all the teachers managed to hold onto their breakfast J. 

Although the kids were a little shaken from the ride they were excited to perform, and we were excited to watch!  The first performance they had was called “Paponyo,” which included 35 of the students.  This was a tribal chant Pokot children did while they praised God.  The kids did a great job!  We were very proud of them!  The next performance was supposed to be Berryl (a class 6 girl), so we went to the performances for the individuals.  We were told she would perform in an hour.  We watched pupil after pupil recite “Mama’s Baby” (we saw it over fifty times) and still it didn’t look like Berryl was anywhere close to performing.  We honestly could recite “Mama’s Baby” for all of you, but we wouldn’t do that to you J.  Finally it was nearing 3pm and she hadn’t performed yet so we decided to go get food.  We got samosas, fried dough balls, and mandazi—so good. 

After we had gotten something to eat we went and sat with the children.  Katy and Abbie took power naps, while I sat staring at the children from another school stare at Katy and Abbie take naps J.  Finally we got the word that Berryl was going to perform—Yay!  She recited the poem “Cry of an Outcast” written by Mr. Shamwama one of our fellow teachers.  Berryl did such an excellent job.  She was spot on with her recitation and her costume! 

Next we ran over to see the class 6 boys and girls recite “Mdudu”.  It is about the spread of HIV/AIDS and was also written by our very own Mr. Shamwama.  Again they did such a great job! They were all together and very animated and loud!  The students were so excited after this performance!  And best of all the audience and judges really enjoyed it!

Finally several of the girls performed a “Nandi Poem.”  This was the last performance for the Mariann students for the day! Again they did excellent! They were loud and all together!

Now for the results! “Paponyo” and “Mdudu” placed second in each of there categories.  Drum roll please…the students will be performing these items in Kapsabet at provincials next week!  The other performances that didn’t make it to provincials were still very excellent, and if we had been judges they would also be at provincials (we are completely unbiased J).

We took the same lorry back to Tachasis, and God answered Abbie’s pray by no one getting sick on the ride home!  We made it back to Mariann around 9pm, and everyone headed to bed!  It was a very exciting and tiring day for everyone!