Singing

Since landing in South Africa we have been blown away by seemingly everyone’s amazing singing voice. Our first greeting from our language instructors was in song on the evening of our arrival; a beautiful and symbolic way to end our epic journey from Philadelphia to Pretoria. Song is an integral part of life in South Africa, present in every social gathering from school to work to play. We’ve learned a few songs and dances, including the national anthem and many of the freedom songs sung during apartheid. On most evenings after training, the language instructors and volunteers will gather to sing and dance. This is one of our favorite parts of the day, as we get to sing and dance and laugh together. One evening, we were learning and singing a song about machine guns and killing all of the white people. Primrose, one of the instructors, turns to Kelli and says “not you, of course”, but later in the song pretends to shoot me with a gun so she pretended to die. It cracked everyone up and was all in good fun. The trainers and other PCT’s still laugh and joke about it. Guess it’s a good sign that we can laugh about such a horrible past that black South Africans have lived through.

picture: Learning traditional songs and dances