If At First You Don't Succeed...Dance Again

We've all experienced failure in this life, and we all know how much it sucks. Putting your whole heart, hard work and effort into something, only to see it all fall apart is crushing. Failing is like slamming your ego up against a brick wall until it bursts into a million pieces. You feel empty and sometimes like maybe nothing you ever do will go right again.

I wouldn't by any means call my first dance class at Ngara Secondary School a failure...but it also didn't go exactly how I had planned (if you don't know what I'm talking about, catch up people! Go see my old blog post “One Month In The Tanz - Dance Baby Dance aka Bomba Fresh” before you read on...) I had been teaching dance regularly at our compound to my co-workers, but I really wanted to teach dance out in the community to kids again. However, I feared that my teaching skills lacked somewhere to make that happen. Maybe there was a cultural misunderstanding that I wasn't cluing into, but I was really disappointed because I had so hoped I could teach dance here as a regular hobby and a way to give back to the locals. But...I didn't want to stand up in front of another class of students and start showing them moves, only to have them whistle and laugh at me again.

As you also know if you've been reading diligently, a couple of my co-workers and I visited the Nazereti orphanage for street boys about a week before Christmas to deliver them presents for the holidays. While there, we discussed the possibility of volunteering at the orphanage in the New Year with Nicole (nice name), the lady who runs the joint. She told us that we were absolutely welcome, and then she turned to me and a look came over her: “Hey! Aren't you the dancer? Oooohhhhh how we'd LOVE to have a dance class! Can we PLEASE make that happen?”

I decided not to tell Nicole how reluctant I was to teach another dance class here in Tanzania, and how chaotic my first experience teaching dance had been. It had been rewarding, but overwhelming. I wasn't sure if I was ready for the challenge again. However, if you know me at all you know that I'm probably the last person on this earth to deprive orphans in Africa (or anywhere for that matter) of...well...anything! And so I was honored to be asked to share my passion, and we agreed I would return January 5^th.

Having prepared my class similarly to how I did last time, but ready for anything, Hilary & I marched into Nazereti confident and cool. And besides a glitch with my music selection (we had to teach the dance to “Bad” by Michael Jackson instead of “No Diggity” by Blackstreet...1996 represent!) our class was a huge success. The first thing that helped was having Nicole there, able to monitor behaviors and help translate my English into Swahili for the boys. And secondly and most importantly, all 25 of them were eager and ecstatic to learn hip hop.

These kids know real pain and struggle that I...and probably you...can't even imagine, and they know how to appreciate the little things and good opportunities that come to them. Many of the boys have been beaten or abused, and even threatened that if they try return home they might even be killed. One boy was missing an eye, and another had some sort of medical problem on his scalp that doctors can't resolve. But today, no one lacked a smile...including me. They slide-clapped their way all up the hillside and about 1/3 of the boys nailed the baby feeze – or better – on their very first try. And...they got the choreography! I only taught them two eight-counts, but several of them nailed it and all of them tried every time. My favorite was watching them do the finger to the side of the nose move, where you brush your nose with your thumb. When I turned around and watched, most of them just looked like they were digging for gold. We laughed and laughed. I was so proud of them.

At the end of class, as I was putting away my laptop, one boy came up to me on his own to say thank you – he was the one who Nicole had pointed out to me earlier in the day, and had mentioned was deaf. She said that he couldn't hear a thing, but that he had amazing rhythm. In Swahili, he thanked me so much for coming and asked me to please come back again soon. I have now agreed to return to Nazereti every Saturday for the next month to continue teaching and training this amazing group of boys.

As Hilary & I exited the gates of Nazereti and walked up the path towards home, we had grins on our faces that stretched ear to ear. We reflected on the rewarding and successful experience we had just had, and how smoothly everything had gone. Then, all of a sudden, I hear “Nichole-aye!” and turn to see a young girl standing outside of her family's hut. I don't recognize her, but she obviously knows me. She then smiles coyly at me and starts doing the Dougie dance.

She was one of my students from my first class at Ngara Secondary, back in November. She not only learned something, but still remembered.

And then I realized...maybe sometimes our failures seem like failures...but aren't really failures after all....