Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

A told B
and B told C
to meet me at the top of the coconut tree
"whee!" said D
to E, F, G
I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree
Chicka chicka boom boom!
will their be enough room?
Here comes H up the coconut tree
and I and J and tag-along K
all on their way up the coconut tree
Chicka chicka boom boom!
will their be enough room?
look who's coming, L M N O P
and Q R S
and T U V
still more, W, and X Y Z
the whole alphabet up the...

OH NO!
CHICKA...CHICKA...BOOM BOOM!
skit scat scoodle doot
flip flap flee
everybody running to the coconut tree
mamas and papas and uncles and aunts
hug their little dears, and dust their pants
Help us up! cried A B C
next from the pile-up, skinned-knee D
and stubbed toe E
and patched-up F

Here comes G all out of breath
H is tangled up with I
J and K are about to cry
L is knotted like a tie
M is looped
and N is stooped
O is twisted alley-oop
skit scat scoodle doot
flip flap flee
look who's coming, it's black-eyed P
Q R S
and loose-tooth T
then U V and W wiggle wiggle free
last to go, X Y Z
as the sun goes down on the coconut tree

But chicka chicka boom boom
look there's a full moon
A is out of bed, and this is what he said
"Dare double dare, you can't catch me!"
chicka chicka boom boom chicka chicka boom boom
"I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree"
chicka chicka boom boom
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In the computer room we have the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom computer game. It focuses on the alphabet. Today I was running the computer room with a new volunteer named Emma. She is 15 and from North Carolina. It's cool to have a kid around my age. I showed Emma all the switches for the computers, and gave her a short overview of the games on each and how the kids do with them. She and I worked in the computer room from 2pm-3:30. At 3:30 Kiersten took over, I went to watch the choir practice, and Emma played some games with the kids in the big room.

Earlier in the morning, Kiersten and I arrived at the center to find Gideon and some other boys scrubbing down the kiddie chairs and tables (those chairs are red and yellow?!?). Then I worked with Rodney and Sheola on reading and math. Around 12:30 Rodney and I left the center and walked a block to the Katutura post office, where I mailed my 16 postcards. It cost $64 Namibian, or about $10 US. Rodney found it intriguing the way I was licking the stamps and air mail stickers, and so I let him do half the pile for me. He really is a wonderful kid.

Back at the center, I showed Emma the computer room, and the two of us worked in there until 3:30.

At 3:30 Wendy came to the computer room and told me to come watch the choir practice. Taura, the young woman who comes every day with her guitar to sing with the kids, stared a choir class for the kids who were interested. The class is held inside the New Start office conference room. The room itself has great acoustics. The kids sounded great...when they were working together and listening to Taura. There were probably fifteen kids in the room. Taura started by warming them up with some fun songs, including Taura's song I am and Africa Child and some other songs that I love listening to. Then she tried to get them organized standing into lines, and to start practicing other songs; but the kids wouldn't listen. Gideon kept starting arguments, and Michelle was always going into the fridge that she's not supposed to be in, and the other boys would just sit in the back and bicker while the other kids were singing. And not all the kids would even just stand in line the way Taura asked! I got up, and told the kids I thought they were being incredibly disrespectful to Taura. I could see her frustration, and was getting angry myself. The kids are so ungrateful. She totally volunteers to work with these kids, and they can't even be quiet and get along for the 40 or so minutes that they practice.

I did get some good video footage of the kids singing, when they were singing and not arguing. At one point, Meroldi was playing the drum for one of the songs, and at the end Sha, her older sister, came over and wanted to take over the drum for the next song. They started grabbing each other and pulling on the drum, and getting so violent to the point that Sha pushed Meroldi on top of one of the new volunteers who was sitting on the floor, and the girls had to be pulled apart by two other volunteers. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wanted to yell and scream at them for being so inconsiderate to Taura; I wanted to just stand there and cry, make them realize how terrible they were acting.

After a while, the kids got sick of Taura's songs and they sang some songs in Damara while dancing fairly provocatively. They have this way of dancing where they get up, the girls usually pull there shirts up half way, and they literally move as if they were engaging in sex. Gideon was dancing with everyone except Hilde, even with Salome and Sha, who are nine or ten years younger than him. This obsession with sex and proactive dancing at such a young age is so strange to me.

Ilga says she is waiting for Gideon's baby number two, and the mother will not be Hilde, she says.

I left the room after a while, when any sort of organized singing had gone down the tubes. A few minutes later Wendy and Rosaine came outside and the three of us played dominoes until 5pm.

MB was closing up the big room when Wendy, MacCreney, Edelsien, Esme, and some other girls ran over to MB and asked for some string. Then they ran over to me and wanted to put their fingers around my wrist. I think they may be making a bracelet for me for my birthday Saturday.

Ilga, Kiersten, and I walked to the Taxi station alone today. One of the drivers, who we usually get a ride from, came up to us and told us he would drive us. Another man come over, and told us that tomorrow we must go with him. The drivers are always so eager to drive white people places. They will even kick other passengers out of their cars in order to fit all of us.

We all had separate dinners today. i just had some pasta and cheese. Tomorrow night we are going to make cheese burgers- and not let any of the guys have any, since they left us out yesterday. We will have our own braai.


Ilga and I watched Little Miss Sunshine on my ipod earlier. Now she is on the couch next to me watching Garden State, which she has never seen. We were talking about the kids dancing, and she said something hilarious, and I was drinking water, and spit it out, all over the electronics and plugs and transformers on the floor next to the desk. It went down my air pipe and I choked for a minute or two, gasping for air and laughing and feeling the need to vomit (or, "womit", as Kiersten or Ilga might say). I still feel the burn in my chest from the water. Ilga and I get along really well, and always go crazy at night. Our silliness always puts me in a good mood before bed.