rehearsals started!!!

YAY! I can finally say now that I've seen Mascato! Only over a week after arriving...that almost killed me! haha
Our first rehearsal was great on friday...Mrs.Venter had me take about the first half of the rehearsal. I figured I would just watch the first one just to see how they work and learn...but nope, I got thrown right into it! But it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be! I had planned on teaching them Baba Yetu the first day but Linus forgot to photocopy that one so I taught them Sanctuary instead. I thought they wouldn't be as into that one because it's so high...but they really enjoyed it! Maybe of them actually knew some of it already because they sing that song in a church in Narraville! It was fun and it seems like I might have some challenges getting them to really open up. The men seem a little better at doing that...but Mrs.Venter has trained them so well now to be very sensitive and not sing loud. She'd much rather have them sing quietly!
I'm also teaching them our version of Dubula. I guess they had brought that song up from South Africa a few years ago and another choir stole it from them and performed it a million times. Mascato dropped it from their repetiore then...but when Mrs.Venter heard we were doing a different version she wanted to learn that one instead. So I just started off the beginning of it...
Mrs.Venter then took over the rest of the rehearsal. I still don't have music for anything yet so it's pretty challenging because I normally rely so much on music! Learning music by ear is tough!!! hhahaha...Especially when we did the click song! hahaha...yeah...I sure can't do all those yet!
We had another rehearsal last night. I went over Sanctuary again and played the piano along with it. They really like that song! It's going to be SO fun with Koko too!!
We went over Dubula again...I taught the rest of it at this rehearsal. Mrs.Venter left to go back to her house to get music for Baba Yetu so I was all on my own. The pretty much got the music down so I figured I would show them the movement we're doing in Dubula. I can't remember the very beginning though!! I just showed them from the "Hai, Hai" part. The almost died laughing when I got to the 'gumboot' type section. I must say though - they picked it up WAY faster than we did!! hahahaha It was really fun teaching that!
When Mrs.Venter got back I started just the first bit of Baba Yetu. I showed them the video of us singing it...they are so excited for everyone to come!!

alrighty...after rehearsal last night Lex hosted a welcoming braai for me at her house. Maybe 20 people or so from choir came along too. It was so much fun! I figured a braai would be just basically like a BBQ at home...I was pretty wrong! You make a fire until it almost burns down to just the coals, then you have this fancy little metal contraption that basically sandwiches all the meat in so it doesn't fall out. You rest it over the fire and flip it every once in a while. It was SO good! Casey (Lex's roomate) made a bunch of salads and Pop (pap? I don't know the spelling) which is basically like porridge made out of corn. Everyone eats that here!
We all had a great time eating, singing, dancing, and watching videos/pictures from the tour last year on my computer!
If you want to check out some pictures click here! Enjoy!

Mascato has a concert tonight in the desert for their spanish sponsor. I'm not singing though because I don't know any of the music yet! But I am going to watch and I'm very excited!!

Have a great sunday everyone! Love to you all!