6/5/2006 3:42:00 PM Children of Wayzata meet Children of Uganda
By Kelly Westhoff
Young people get chance to laugh, learn about each other’s cultures
At Wayzata East Middle School (EMS) on May 31, oceans were crossed, cultures were shared and friendships were formed. Conversation and laughter filled the school's cafeteria as 56 EMS students sat down to dinner with 22 students from Uganda.
All of the kids were bright faced. They had just come in from the school’s fields, where they had played sports and talked in the late-afternoon sun.
After a meal of pizza, chips and subs, they headed to the gym for some music. The EMS jazz band played a few songs; the chamber choir performed as well.
The music was an important part of the evening. Indeed, music is the reason the kids from Uganda were in the Twin Cities. The Ugandan students, ages 6 to 20, are part of a musical troupe called Children of Uganda. They performed at the International Children’s Festival this past weekend at the Ordway in St. Paul.
But what were the Children of Uganda doing at EMS?
Will Marshall, an EMS seventh grader, was instrumental in connecting the Children of Uganda with the school. “A couple of years ago,” he explained, “my grandma introduced me to Children of Uganda. She took me to see a performance. I didn’t want to go, but I had a really good time.”
The music was infectious, but so was the attitude of the performers. “When they play,” Marshall added, “they’re so happy. I don’t know how they do that; be so happy with all the stuff they’ve been through.”
What the Children of Uganda have been through is horrifying — war, ethnic cleansing, disease, abandonment. A landlocked country in East Africa, Uganda is surrounded by Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and the Congo.
In the 1970s and ’80s, two Ugandan dictators, Idi Amin and Milton Obote, made international headlines with their reigns of genocide. Plus, like many African nations, Uganda has been hit by AIDS.
The child performers of the Children of Uganda have all been touched by violence and death; many are orphans. Acceptance into the group offers these children a feeling of belonging, performance training and a chance to travel outside Africa. Every two years, the Children of Uganda tour the United States.
It was two years ago that Will Marshall first saw the Children of Uganda perform. This year, when he found out the group was coming back through the Twin Cities, he turned to the woman who had originally introduced him to the music: his grandmother.
Marshall’s grandmother, Willena Marshall, is a member of the Cultural Advisory Group for the Ordway’s International Children’s Festival. She helped bring the Children of Uganda to the Twin Cities and, when she learned her grandson was interested in introducing the kids at his school to the troupe, she offered to help. She contacted the school’s principal, Mike Trewick, who in turn told his staff about the opportunity.
Matt Scheidler, an eighth grade world cultures and geography teacher at EMS, stepped up to the plate. “As a world geography teacher,” he said, “I’m always looking for different ways to expose our kids to the world.”
Scheidler designed an extra-curricular program that would give EMS students the chance to be cultural ambassadors. The cultural ambassadors would learn about Uganda and have the opportunity to meet the Children of Uganda face to face.
He created an application process and invited kids from across the student body to apply. Interested students had to turn in a teacher’s endorsement, a parent’s signature and an essay. The essay had to address the question: “Why do you think you’d make a good ambassador?”
In the end, 56 students from grades six, seven and eight were accepted as ambassadors.
“The students who are ambassadors,” Scheidler said, “wrote that they were open-minded, energetic, friendly. They said they wanted to learn about the world.
“Really, what we’re trying to do is empower these kids,” Scheidler explained. “They want to be leaders. We’re trying to show them how.
“This program is giving them a chance to see themselves in a different light, to step out of their peer group. This is a chance to get out of their cocoons, to get out of their comfort zones.”
Being an ambassador did indeed introduce many Wayzata students to new ideas. Before the Children of Uganda arrived at the school, a small group of girls prepared goodie bags for each member of the performance troupe. Pens, pencils, rulers and pads of paper went into each bag.
As they worked, the girls offered up a string of facts they’d learned about Uganda: Fifty percent of Uganda’s population is under the age 14. There are 2.4 million children in Uganda who have lost a parent to AIDS. Most people in Uganda survive on $1 a day.
One of the girls, Erin Higginson, a seventh-grader, explained a part of the ambassador training. “We learned a lot of personal information about the group,” she said. “We each got one of these packets with pictures and profiles of all the kids. We read all of their profiles. Their parents died from AIDS. For some of them, both of their parents died from AIDS.”
“Some of the girls,” Higginson said, “are 16, but they’re in sixth grade. That’s interesting to see. That’s really different from here.”
Another girl, Mckenzie Neal, also a seventh-grader, jumped in. “I didn’t realize how poor it was in Uganda.
“There are kids there that have lost both of their parents, and they aren’t even living in an orphanage,” Neal said. “We saw pictures. These kids were sleeping outside. Their bed was a blanket on the ground with a bunch of sticks all around. That was it.”
Neal stopped a second to let the image of the blankets on the stick-strewn ground sink in, then added, “We also learned that disease has hit them. AIDS has affected all of them.”
Before greeting the Children of Uganda, Scheidler gathered the student ambassadors in his classroom for last-minute instructions and reminders.
One of those reminders was this: Have tact. Don’t pepper your guests with questions that might make them feel uncomfortable. Families, death and AIDS weren’t forbidden subjects; however, they weren’t recommended for discussion.
But the taboo topics didn’t seem to matter. The Wayzata student ambassadors and the Children of Uganda interacted with each other openly and eagerly. They interacted with each other like contemporaries, because in many ways, they are.
They played basketball, soccer and volleyball. They hugged their arms to their chests and rolled down a hill. They sat in small circles on a grassy field and asked one another questions.
How old are you?, they asked. What kind of music do you listen to? Do you like science? What do you want to be when you grow up?
