English Theater Competition 2013

Every year, schools all over Mozambique gather in September for the annual English Theater Competition -- each school brings 10 students to do a 10-minute skit in English about a certain topic. This year's topic: "My Choice, Our Future". Given my enthusiasm for theater, this is something that I have been excited about since my arrival in Mavudzi-Ponte.

Team Mavudzi-Ponte

For the last two months or so, I've been working with the kids in this picture to put together our skit. It's been... a challenge. Theater is not something that's usually done in my village. Unlike other towns, we don't usually have big holiday celebrations, so a skit is a foreign concept to most of the students. Things like expressing emotion, not turning  your back to the audience, using your imagination -- these are not skills that my kids are accustomed to using. Coupled with the fact that even the best of my students have trouble stringing a very simple sentence together in English, much less memorizing a chunk of text, getting them to put together a 10-minute skit was like pulling teeth.

And yet, manage we did, after a lot of frustration and long rehearsals. Saturday morning found my kids eagerly awaiting the start of the competition, waiting to find out what kind of competition they were up against. In total, eleven groups participated in the competition. 

Nervously awaiting their turn.

When the time came to perform, things went... mais ou menos. One of my students got so nervous, he forgot his lines and just stared at the audience in silence until someone nudged him to get off stage. The ones who remembered their lines were so quiet, only the first two rows could hear them. Almost everyone had their back to the audience at some point or another.

And yet, despite all those things, they got through the piece. They spoke for 10 minutes unbroken in English. They worked as a team. And they had fun. I was extremely proud of them.

"Hey baby, give me your phone number!"

"You're under arrest!"

In the end, we didn't win. We didn't even place, and honestly I think we came somewhere near the bottom. But we were up against some tough groups -- groups of city kids, of 11th and 12th graders, groups from pre-University schools, and one group from an international school. Considering where my kids come from and their history, I'm very proud of their performance and I told them so many times. I hope they believed me.

Me with my kiddos on the stage.

When we came back to Mavudzi-Ponte, we had a short team meeting, and everyone couldn't stop talking about how much fun they had. They decided that, since the judges only ranked up to third place, we could just tell people in our town that we got fourth and no one would be the wiser. I am OK with this ethically ambiguous decision. After all, how can you say no to these guys?
 

English Theater Team 2013

From left to right in the picture:
Mussa - My incredibly well-behaved and studious class clown.
Rosa - Some girls would be intimidated in a group full of boys, but Rosa is sassy and can hold her own.
Gil - Constantly tries to hit on Rosa during rehearsals to no avail -- amusing, since they play a married couple.
Nelson - Despite having a small part, Nelson insisted on rehearsing his 5 lines with me for several hours until he had them down perfect. I've never heard "You're under arrest"  spoken with such perfection.
Mouzinho - Basically the nicest kid ever. Insisted that the whole group walk me home upon our arrival at the end of the day, to make sure that I made it back OK (all 100 yards between school and home)
Emerino - I took a lot of pictures that day, and this is the only one where Emerino's eyes are open.
Izaquel - Next year's Assistant Team Captain. Walked an hour to and from school every morning for rehearsal (and then again in the afternoon for school). He had to borrow clothes from Jaurencio because his only t-shirt and pants have holes in them -- and then spent the whole day strutting around in his borrowed clothes feeling so chique.
Jaurencio - The most enthusiastic and energetic little member of our group. Not at all intimidated to score the lead role in a group of kids who are mostly 2-3 years older than him. Already chosen as next year's Team Captain.
Michael - Nice, but overly confident young man who forgot his lines. Oops! Nothing like screwing up to teach you some humility!
Albert (not pictured) - Dedicated student who, aside from English Theater, comes to my house for tutoring twice a week.
 
I am already looking forward to next year's English Theater competition -- not only because Mavudzi-Ponte is going to bring it next year, but also, I'll be the one in charge of organizing the event. (Event planning? My favorite!) A lot of our team will be graduating this year, which I'm pretty bummed about, but we'll just have to find equally awesome new members.

So to all those other schools, I say até a proxima, "until the next time". We'll see who has the best skit next year...