Of Music & Art...

This past Saturday again saw our little outreach group without access to marimbas, so I borrowed some little glockenspiels to work with for memory purposes.  The children came to the workshop and memorised a very well-known Zulu song, Nampaya Omame - a little song telling the story of what mommy brings home after work - inyama (meat), ikheke (cake), amaswidi (sweets) -amongst other things!  The children loved learning the notes which all fitted very well on the glocks, eventually putting the three parts together, and repeating until we all had headaches!  Glockenspiels at that pitch can be as penetrating as recorders.....!

They were all very keen to try the artwork which I had prepared. This was a very easy and economical project using crayons and pastels - wax etching - which is also an incredibly effective technique, well worth displaying.

First they covered their sheets of paper with light coloured wax crayon block patterns.  Then they took black pastel and covered their patterns thickly.  They then etched line drawings into the wax with kebab sticks, revealing the colourful underlay.  The results were great and the kids were very proud of their work!

I am so enjoying this unexpected turn of events, teaching simple art techniques - and pray that I will be able to continue this, God willing, and that art supplies become available as needed.  It seems the children are enjoying this as much as I do, and I can but hope that these activities bring a little relief from their difficult environments.

When I took the pictures, they all wanted to pose with a glockenspiel and their pictures - this tells me that they really must enjoy doing both activities!  Thank you, Jesus, for providing the opportunity. 



The Awesome Foursome!