The African Children's Choir

So, I've slacked off on the posting. What else is new? Today I graded some papers, keyed in the grades and tomorrow I'm going to distribute progress reports to anyone in my AFM class who is failing. We don't want to have any drama toward the end of the nine weeks. I had a filling meal today of not tender enough roast, macaroni and cheese, okra, rice and gravy.

Yesterday a colleague invited me to attend a performance at a sister/partner church of theirs in Durham. Me and some others went down and the performance was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was the African Children's Choir in concert. If you aren't familiar with the ACC, every 15 months a new choir is commissioned with new children. Typically the childrens' ages range from 10 - 12. In this year's cohort there are 9 males and 12 females. The children hail from Uganda, Rwanda and various other countries in Africa. The inaugural choir first performed in 1984. The children travel around the US singing and raising money to send back to African to fund research into stopping the spread of AIDS and to helping find a cure. While the children stay here in the US they study, pray, rehearse their songs and are involved in academic pursuits.

Because the children are of African origin, the children donned intricate stage clothes and their songs were accompanied by dance that I assume is real "African" dance--definitely no Americanized.