Bofa Drama Workshop: Monday August 10, 2015 – Kilifi, Kenya
by Teresa Cantu
After a quick thirty-minute layover at my home in Dubai, I quickly squeezed my puzzled cat goodbye and joined my friend Suzzi as we darted off to the airport. Two flights and fifteen hours later we found ourselves pulling into the incredible Tulia Bofa. The longtime friends of Suzzi, Kerry and George, built the picturesque cottage. The two smiling faces of Answar and Mirella, who gave us a tour of the premises, greeted us warmly. They went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed to be comfortable, but the best part is that they were greeting us as friends and not as guests.
Pesky jet lag and a long day of travel meant that my bed became my new best friend around 9pm. Having slept a solid seven hours I found myself ready to face my first full day in Kenya at 4am. Perhaps there was an air of excitement and anticipation, but I found myself counting the hours until the sun would rise and I might feel it an appropriate time to start the day and further lesson plan with Suzzi. Fast-forward to 10am and Answar, Kazungo, and the grounds crew transformed the front garden of Tulia Bofa into a proper tented classroom and performance space. Children from neighboring villages begin to trickle in through the front gate and before we knew it we had seats full of students ranging in ages from 12 to 40 years old.
The idea behind Necessary Arts is to empower all participants as students and leaders. As some members of the group appeared to be a bit shy, we began the day with warm up activities to get everyone up and moving. The Wave activity had each participant using body movement to mimic the person standing to their left. This game quickly elicited giggles from everyone and helped us move into our next game. This time everyone was asked to cross an imaginary lake while acting out motions assigned to them by other group members. The most boisterous activity came last as the task of counting up and down from 1 to 10 was set to a beat provided by clapping hands. Who knew counting could be so fun? This activity focused not only on voice, but more importantly on the significance of eye contact as a means of communication and confidence.
Three leaders emerged as we transitioned into our next activity. We asked all students to think about the word love and what it means. All were asked to think about what it felt to love and be loved. The acting began as each individual was then challenged to make a facial expression showing what love looked like. Some students were more willing than others. Mirella, a 22 year old young woman living in Mombasa, lit up inside and she visually expressed her emotion with a grand smile. She became one of the leaders when the full class divided into three smaller groups. Each smaller group created a stationary tableau to show what love looked like. Ziwadi, a 19 year old Kilifian working on the grounds of Tulia Boha, and Furaha, a 25 year old who has traveled abroad as a soccer player and works in Kilifi as a girl’s soccer coach, emerged as leaders within the second group. The third group, comprised of younger students, performed well as they began to communicate and trust each other through the sharing of ideas.
After each tableau, all of which involved the physical embracing of all participants, a new word was given to each group and the same instructions were given. The first step was to understand the meaning and feeling of the word and then a tableau was created. Mirella’s group received the word responsibility and their tableau looked like people picking crops from the earth. This makes complete sense given the region of Kenya. Ziwadi and Furaha’s group received the word peace and once again their tableau displayed people holding hands and embracing one another. The final group of youngsters received the word community and they too joined hands in solidarity as statues. Students were next immediately challenged to display the opposite of their assigned word. The responsibility group immediately stopped their imaginary work and began sitting down or looking like many other teenagers around the globe – completely mesmerized by a smartphone. The peace group dropped hands with their neighbors and turned their backs on one another. Finally, the community group, no longer arm in arm, walked away from one another.
The final performance task came when students created their own skits to show their understanding of each word. After about 5 minutes of group discussion, Suzzi and I coaxed each group to their feet to encourage the acting portion of the performance to come alive. As performances came together, we reminded each group about the importance of eye contact, stage presence and positioning, as well as volume and pace. The focus of Responsibility performance was a doctor helping an injured girl and two of the actors emerged as true performers. The Community performance was truly beautiful as it depicted people planting and harvesting guavas. As there were only three guavas in the harvest, rather than only three people having a taste, the actors divided the three guavas so that every actor and member of the audience was able to have a piece. The choice, be it intentional or not, to have no spoken word was also powerful in communicating the overall message. Finally, the Peace group portrayed two individuals, Furaha and a young boy, having an aggressive exchange. The boy commented on Furaha’s clothing. This was notable as she was the only female in the entire group to wear pants rather than a skirt. He commented that, “Girls should not dress like this!” and she fired back threateningly. It is evident that this is no doubt a situation that Furaha has experienced in real life. In the scene, two other actors emerged convincing Furaha and the boy to make peace with one another. The skit ended with each actor holding one another’s hands high in the air and chanting, “You are my brothers and sisters. We must live in harmony and peace!” One cannot argue the importance of these words.
The English teacher in me could not help myself, and the activity ended with each group huddled around a piece of paper writing their final takeaway from the activity and their understanding how they see their word in Kilifi. Suzzi and I were impressed at how serious and engaged each student was in sharing his or her opinion on the subject.
Day two begins tomorrow and we’ve encouraged today’s students to bring along friends, siblings, and family. Tomorrow we will expose students to scripts and expand upon stage and performance instruction. It should be an exciting day, and I look forward to seeing both returning and new faces.
Bofa Drama Workshop: Tuesday August 11, 2015 – Kilifi, Kenya
After a fantastic Day #1 my recharge for the soul came in the form of Wi-Fi (I hate to have to admit that) and a great night’s sleep. The plan to utilize my jetlag to catch the morning’s sunrise on Kilifi Beach proved futile as I remained in bed until 7am. I suppose today is the last day to use my jetlag as an excuse! 10am came quickly and Suzzi and I are proud to say that we doubled our attendance in just one day. Today we had a student as young as 10 years and Answar joined us for opening activities once again.
We learned while chatting yesterday that Answar is a trained teacher, and like so many others, he left the profession as low pay and the number of pupils began to rise. He also spoke of his frustration with teacher solely teaching to the test, which leaves students at a disadvantage once they move on the higher levels of education. Does this tale sound familiar? I’m sure teachers around the world, and most certainly in my native United States, will relate to this frustration. However, upon seeing Answar working with kids today it is clear to see that he really has something special. He is a great contact and support to have within the communities of Kilifi and Bofa.
Today’s workshop began with a human knot activity. We thought this would be a great way to get the participants working together, speaking, moving, and hopefully laughing with one another. Most of you will probably be familiar with this game. People work in small groups and grasp hands with the person standing across from them. Once all hands are connected this leaves the arms looking like a tangled knot. The challenge is to then delicately twist and turn, without releasing any hands, and untangle the knot. We assured our students this task was in fact possible, but after several minutes, unsuccessful attempts, but thankfully no dislocated shoulders, we made each group smaller and gave a demonstration. We found that all groups could find success if we made each group no larger than three. Perhaps they will try again in the future and have better luck.
We worked once more with The Wave game I mentioned in yesterday’s entry. However, this time we added sound and rhythm to the mix. We began with simple tapping, and then added clapping, jumping, and cheering. The build up of energy was great, and this was greatly due to our increased numbers. The energy was infectious. We carried this energy into a game of storytelling in which each student is only allowed to give one word at time. 
The story grows with each new word given by each new member of the group. This game has mixed success and we were working with children of very varying levels of English, but the best part was still that the students supported one another and tried their best. We ended with a fun round of charades in which participants acted out various actions, animals, and emotions. We finally felt like an energized community.
The story grows with each new word given by each new member of the group. This game has mixed success and we were working with children of very varying levels of English, but the best part was still that the students supported one another and tried their best. We ended with a fun round of charades in which participants acted out various actions, animals, and emotions. We finally felt like an energized community.
Suzzi, Naima, and I selected a short play entitled, “The Fisherman, His Wife, and the Sea of Dreams” for today’s workshop. There were six parts in total and we divided students into each group. There were between 4 to 5 members per group. Each group was given a highlighter and asked to highlight their character’s lines. They then had some time to practice the lines before the choral read-aloud of the play. We all agreed that this play was perfect as it was about a man who returns a fish to the sea upon catching her. She tells the fisherman, called Fred, that she is in truth an enchanted princess! Because of his kindness in not serving her as dinner for family and friends, he is granted wishes. His wife wishes for a castle but remains displeased. Fred returns to the fish and asks for a tasteful palace. However his wife is still not pleased, and neither is a friend who is also displeased with the gifts she has also received. Fred’s final wish is simply to ask that his friends and family are always happy. He returns home and finds that his original shanty of a house is back, but the friends and family are all happy. They will of course live happily ever after.
We spoke with the students about happiness and how we can find happiness when we learn to appreciate all that we do have in life, rather than focusing on what we do not have. The groups worked on a final task in which they created lists of things that make them happy in their own lives and community. Suzzi and I were thrilled to see that all groups listed having a school to attend, a beach to play on, and family and friends to share time with. There was no negativity around.
As the workshop on day two concluded we asked if any students might be willing to escort us to one of the local schools. We know the schools are on summer holiday but we thought we would try to make any point of contact we could for a future visit. As we left for our journey we expected to be escorted by one or two students, but to our surprise the entire group joined us! We walked the streets, a mixture of paved and dirt roads, and spoke about plants, animals, my white skin, and curly black hair. Much of the talk amongst the kids was in their native Swahili. I need to add that to the list of things to learn…
After about 40 minutes of walking we arrived at Bofa Primary School. The school was created in 2010 with just two classrooms, but after several donations they have been able to build a total of seven classrooms, two offices, and 3 bathrooms. We met the head of school, a man named Justus, and he gave us a tour. He beamed with pride at the state of his school, but he was also very honest with the struggles. Each classroom, all of which are smaller than my own, hold at least 40 students. There is also no electricity – which is making the planned computer lab a bit of a challenge. However, he remains nothing but positive and we look forward to working at his school in the future.
During our walk home it became clear why this community is so incredible. After today’s lesson the participants once again picked guavas from the neighboring tree. Each student left the home with multiple guavas, and as we came across young children on our walk our students passed off their fruits to those they knew did not have any. If you look at these kids you might think they are without and would therefore cling to what they do have, but we witnessed the opposite. It brought back our words of study from yesterday’s lesson: Peace, Responsibility, Community, and Love. Right then and there we witnessed it all. They are a true community and share with one another at all times. We hope that after we teach our students new skills, games, and activities they will make these same choices and chose to share their experiences with others. This is after all what Necessary Arts is all about.
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