Exchange Students: From Africa to Hoboken

Exchange Students: From Africa to Hoboken January 20, 2012, Friday morning at Wallace Primary School in Hoboken, New Jersey was a mini-jamboree, as African Views (AV) presented a few lucky seventh-graders with an original and inventive program to rethink their idea of Africa and Africans.

Led and organized by executive director Wale Idris Ajibade, board chairman William A. Verdone, board director Agnieszka Grzybowska, and AV Media Producer Frances Hanlon, and with special help from Hoboken Education Board member Carmelo Garcia, the African Cultural Exchange (ACE) program, an ancillary of African Views, was designed to counter some of the negative (or very few positive) representations of Africa that children are exposed to by educating them in an immersive and interactive setting that allows them to explore the diverse cultures of the continent. Wallace Primary School was the first school in Hoboken - and in New Jersey - to receive the program.

The team arrived at 8:30 A.M, and by nine, Wale was covering the different regions of Africa with Mr. Donovan’s history class in a white, barely covered rectangular classroom. The students were quiet but very sharp and inquisitive. When Wale showed them a map and asked them to locate Africa, they knew which one it is: “It’s the one in the middle.” They also knew the highest mountain in the continent, Kilimanjaro, that the Sahara is a desert (“Isn’t it like the size of the United States”) and until then, that there only North, West, East and Southern Africa (not South Africa which is a country).

The presentation was supplemented with Skype video conferences with students from schools in Africa. The first call was with AV Country Director in Senegal Mr. Cheikhou Thiome’s bilingual class in Dakar. It was 9:20 in New Jersey and 2:20 in Dakar. But there was the same excitement and eagerness in both schools, though the novelty of the Skype call was more than visible in the Dakar classroom. And while Mr. Donovan’s class was a bit more subdued, they were still intrigued; some of them even moved closer to see and be seen by Mr. Thiome’s students. But the stark excitement in Dakar was undeniable. One student got up to introduce herself; she was eight years old, four years younger than most of the students in Hoboken. But because of the poor connection, we couldn’t hear from more of her or her classmates.

We then tried to get AV Country Director in Botswana Sandra Augustine Nnebo’s class from Botswana, and while we were trying to get connected, Wale began the second part of his presentation: What is African?

Africa, from the Greek word Afrike, meaning a “warm and safe place,” is as varied and different in climate, religion, culture and people as the United States and Europe. Africans are as different from each other as most Americans are, with different color skin, features and texture. The connection to Botswana was back.

Sandra’s class said a few words before it went off. In the interval Patrick Gorham, a “modern-day Indiana Jones” from AfricaWrites gave a presentation of the bounjoun, an ancient acrobatic dance performed by teenage girls in northern and central Guinea as an initiation ritual. But it was Patrick’s extensive adventures through the continent that piqued the student’s already heightened curiosity. They asked him if he’s ever been attacked; if he’s seen a lion; and what the gorillas in the region were like.

Patrick was done, and we got back to Botswana with Sandra’s class but the again the connection was bad, and it was time to wrap the presentation with the class and for a music lesson with Yacouba Sissoko and Sacha Chavez. As that class left, another one came in, and in less than ten minutes, they talking to Sandra’s class in Botswana. Like the students in Hoboken, Sandra’s class was a multi-national one, with students from different countries. There was Abby, 11, from Zimbabwe; Madeleine, Adam and Brandon, also from Zimbabwe; there was an eight year-old from Nigeria; Kayla, from Botswana; and others from South Africa, Zambia and Namibia. The connection got better during the third class, and the kids had a chance to exchange interact. They asked questions such as taste in food, sports, talked about the difference of soccer and football, they described the cities they lived in and eventually Hoboken kids taught Kids in Botswana how to say hello in Spanish and they learned how to say goodbye in Setswana, which is the mostly spoken language of people in Botswana, the Batswana.

Meanwhile, the first class was learning the intricacies of the kora from Malian singer and kora aficionado Yacouba Sissoko. The kora, a 21-string instrument found in traditional and popular West African music, especially in Mali, Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea, is noticeable for its huge soundbox, which is made from cow- or goathide, a long hard-wooden neck and a bridge that connects the twenty-one strings. Most kora players, like Yacouba Sissoko, are also singers, or griots, which are responsible for keeping tact of decades, even centuries of family history. Yacouba shared the session with musician and producer Sacha Chavez. As Yacouba had done, Sacha explained to the class the historical and social influences of three different string instruments: the guitar, the charango, a Native American-style mandolin made from armadillo shell, and the banjo. He and Yacouba then began a conversation, beginning first with the kora and the guitar, sustaining it with the

kora and the charango and finally finishing off with the kora and the banjo, each time holding a dialogue between two different and yet similar cultures. The kids learned to understand the uniqueness of the kora, compared to other string instruments and experienced how the instruments complement each other and harmonize.

And then it was time for doll making! Coordinated by France Garrido from the Newark Museum, and inspired by the artwork of the Ndebele people, a small ethnic group in Southern Africa, the students made their own dolls using plastic water bottles, adding fabric and accessories to decorate and individualize them. The dolls were beautiful, stylish, odd, and cool, but all were creative. When asked about the inspiration behind their dolls, one student, Xavier, an avid history and geography bluff who wants to be an explorer like Patrick, explained that his doll is an assemblage of his multifarious heritage.

From Hoboken to Africa: Thank you! Displaying the dolls they have just made, inspired by the Ndebele traditions.

Additional Pictures:

The ACE production (AV Crew and 7th grade Teachers from Wallace School)

Wallace School Seventh Graders and ACE production crew Editor: Kombeh Jobe Photos: Frances Hanlon Photos: Kiki Vรถkt Photos: Cora Rose Lewicki