17th April:
On the first day that we arrived in Hassan
we discovered that, after surfing, we would only have 8 people left to do the
musical (a musical that was chosen because it contains a lot of ensemble parts
to allow us to include everyone!). The reason for this is that I have not come
to work in an orphanage, as previously thought, but a boarding house. Most of
the girls here are not orphans but they have been removed from their homes
because of a financial reason (their parents couldn’t afford to keep them) or because
one of their parents (usually their father) is a heavy drinker. Some of the
parents can afford to give money to the nuns for board and schooling (around
3500 rupees per year). Other parents cannot so this is subsidised by the work
that Paul does with Homes for Hope as well as a very small amount from the
government. So most of the children will be going home to parents or relatives
for the remainder of the summer.
So since we would be down to 8 after the
surfing trip (and most of the girls don’t speak brilliant English) we decided
that it would be best to do a condensed version of The Wiz. I have written a script, we have cast our
narrators who will read from the script so that they don’t have to memorise it
and we have cast our lead characters who will mime out the actions described by
the narrators. Most of the narrators are doing well with their English and we
will continue to work with them over the coming days. We have also learned the
singing to one song (He’s The Wiz) and some of the singing (the words “Can’t
you feel a brand new day”) in Brand New Day. The dance to The Wiz is a little
more involved than the Brand New Day dance. This is purely because of three
factors – talking, talking and talking! Rehearsals are a mixture of excitement
(when a tune clicks and everyone sounds great), pride (in myself and Molly as
well as the children at what we are managing to achieve in a very short time
period) and frustration. The frustration is mainly borne out of the fact that
the children shout, talk and hit. And not just in breaks in between songs! They
start talking to one another DURING the songs!!! So Brand New Day is a very
easy dance purely because the children wouldn’t listen after being asked
countless times over numerous rehearsals!
We have also learned the tornado dance
which looks pretty good and we did our first full run through yesterday with
most of the props and some of the costumes. Molly and I were busy a couple of
evenings ago making 4 monkey masks (out of the leftover fur that Mum used to make
the Lion costume). Molly has also made a scale version of the hot air balloon
(from card, balloons and bamboo), she stuffed some green tights to act as the
Wicked Witches’ legs that poke out from under Dorothy’s house when he lands in
Oz and she made a medal for the Lion (when he gets his courage) and Toto the
dog from balloons. We are hoping that we can create a backdrop on a single
bedsheet, however, we may run out of time (plus, we’re not sure where we can
hang it when we perform!).
18th April update:
I walked out of rehearsal today to show the
children that it is not ok to talk constantly during rehearsal and it is not
acceptable to leave mid-way through a rehearsal or a dance (I appreciate the
irony in walking out to prove that it’s not ok to walk out!). They were quite
shocked when Molly explained that I had left because I was sad as I had come a
long way to play with everyone and no-one was paying attention. After about 5
minutes I came back to a chorus of “sorry Auntie”. The nuns scolded the children
and told them that they were lucky to have us here and that they needed to pay
attention to direction. They explained that I wanted to work with them and that
I was prepared to give them as much time as was necessary, however, I would
only work hard if they worked hard too! The nuns want this to be a success as
much as Molly and I do and, even if no-one else does, they appreciate the
effort we are going to!
After this episode we had the full
attention of all of the children for 30 minutes (30 minutes more than we’ve had
the whole time that we’ve been here!) so we added in some more steps to the
Brand New Day dance. This was 100% necessary as I was falling asleep watching
it before!!! We also learned a few more lines to this song so that everyone can
sing at least part of it. They are doing very well as it’s quite a fast song
and they are singing in their second language. We will continue to work on this
as we have some issues with singing and dancing at the same time (as is always
the case!) but it’s definitely looking better.
After the morning rehearsal I spoke with
Sister Mary and asked her if the children were enjoying the rehearsals as I was
troubled by their attitudes. (At this point I should probably state that some
children are very committed and dedicated to getting the most they can from
this experience and they will ask me to help them and will study the songs on
their own too). Even taking into account the fact that they are children, they
are singing in a second language and they are dancing in a different way to
what they are used to, Molly and I are shocked at the lack of discipline and
respect for anyone/ everyone. Sister
explained that they are enjoying themselves and that this is normal behaviour
for the children. Sister asked us for advise on how to get the children to be
more disciplined and more respectful to adults as well as to each other. I
appreciate that disciplining 90 children (the number of children at the
boarding house when school is back!) must be a thankless task and the Sisters
do incredibly well! Molly and I have already started to work with the children
on saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and they are doing very well with this. We
will work on the rest – the next challenge after we finish the show!
Update 20th:
We have painted everyone's faces today and given out all of the remaining costumes that I brought from UK. Everyone looked really good, especially the munchkins who looked very cute with their hippie facepaint. Most of the children were happy with what they were given, however, there were a few who wanted more and one child even asked me if we would be giving them soap and painting their nails!!! I must confess that I was confused that children who literally have nothing (their parents can't afford to keep them!) could be acting almost a little spoilt. There definitely seems to be a "please sir, I'd like some more" attitude among some of the children that I struggle to understand. But this is only some of the children - the rest are very happy and appreciative when given treats. Maybe there is a good reason for this behaviour (and I have learned that some of the children have had bad times over the years) but this doesn't stop me from feeling shocked.
Nonetheless we continued with the rehearsal, did 2 run throughs (one good and one diabolical!) and then Molly and I took the afternoon off to explore the (tiny!) village.There is a little lake here so we went to sit down there to relax and regroup.We have done so much in the past week that it was nice to reflect with pride in our achievements.
It is not my intention to be negative in this blog, however, I felt that it was important to note that the attitudes of the children are vastly different to what I expected. To finish on a positive, I have recently found out that the children all pray for other people less fortunate than themselves when they pray and not for themselves. This is admirable!
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