Jerard learning to be flexible, adaptable and spontaneous in Nyanga

Africa Acts Out is a spectacularly inventive initiative conjured up by our programs very own Avery Desroisers. I have been lucky enough to be a part of helping her vision come to fruition as my activist project. Through Africa Acts Out we hoped to bring creative writing experience, improv skills, and dance and singing lessons to the impoverished township of Nyanga. After just three weeks of working with a group of students in an after school program, I believe we have already taught them a great deal and hopefully provided them with even more entertainment and joy. With that being said absolutely nothing has unfolded according to our vision and we have had to learn to adapt to new circumstance and shifting personalities.

One of our many wise professors, Marita McComiskey, is famous for saying how Cape Town has taught her to be “flexible, spontaneous, and adaptable.” Our first day working with our activist project was a crash course lesson on how to live her mantra. The way we envisioned our first day going we would simply be introducing ourselves to high school learners and telling them about the after school program we hoped to start. Absolutely nothing we expected ended up translating to reality. For starters we were taken to a primary school, what in the United States would amount to an elementary school, and told to give our spiel. We were left temporarily to keep the kids entertained while the teachers had a quick meeting. After that was said and done we expected to be taken to a high school so that we would be able to get older learners involved. Both creative writing and improv would work best with a group that was more experienced with English and had a better grasp on abstract concepts. In the end, we were taken to lunch by the Africa Unite employees responsible for helping us establish our program in Nyanga. Eventually we were taken back to the church where the program would take place only to find that the place was swarming with a ton of precocious young kids excited to begin their study of the arts.

Everyone of the UConn students that came to participate in teaching the learners was completely caught off guard by this. Although we had all created rough sketches of what we would teach the following week, none of us had a full lesson planned. We were immediately thrust into action and forced to come up with ways to keep the kids entertained. As I stated before creative writing and improv are two things that are very difficult to do with younger kids. In the end creative writing had to be thrown out completely and improv had to be expanded into the broader category of drama. I joined Avery in teaching the latter subject. Since our initial set of classes we have had to completely change our goals and plans due to different kids showing up each week, working with a younger crowd, having fewer resources than we expected, transportation issues and a substantial language barrier. A few times members of our Uconn group have clashed over how things have run and at times we have found the entire ordeal stressful. None of that matters to me though because each time we leave we are showered in love and affection. The smiles we see every Friday and the skills we’ve imparted to these children have far outweighed the negatives of the experience. I hope that Africa Acts Out is something that future students and the community itself eventually embraces so that our vision can extend far into the future.