Unexpected Experience

May 23rd, 2010

Having travelled to Gugs on Saturday for an extra lesson with the Amy Biehl group, we found ourselves in the middle of a Xhosa funeral. The young people needed a lift to the graveyard  and would be able to leave after that so I found myself watching a traditional Catholic ceremony over-layed with African songs. The women of the church, in their black and white uniform with a streak of red ribbon around their necks sang the loudest. After a while we gave phones to the kids and they shot the burial, capturing each guest throwing sand into the earth and the faces of the ladies sitting under the awning away from the midday sun.

At the wake, while the students shot interviews,  I spoke to the parents about how much they appreciated Amy Biehl and what a difference it made to their children’s lives. Plates of food, fizzy drinks and smiles came from all sides.  I had washed my hands in the big tub and was from then on part of the gathering.

We drove over to the school where we had been given permission to use the computers to edit. Having been delayed by the funeral, we were rather late, but the Principal forgave us when we showed him some of the footage from the funeral, along with interviews with the family of the deceased and a report to camera from some of the students.

We converted the footage and began to edit. As ever, the limited Ram in the computers made playback hard so we whipped out two of the laptops donated by Jenny Estill and Rex Salisbury from Davidson University, which saved the day.

Back at the wake, we gave a DVD of the short report to the sister. It was a great lesson in how quickly their work can turnaround. We found half the group playing on iTunes which they figured out instantly and loved listening to the music in the collection.

It was a great day. More to come soon

If anyone has an old laptop they would be willing to donate to this project, please contact [email protected]

Cheers!