My last week in Swakop was way too short! Time has just flown by this trip!
We weren’t able to get into theatre here until Thursday night (which was a little scary because the stage was WAY smaller than the one in Windhoek and we had to do major changes!)
So the rest of my time I tried to get in a couple of things that I really haven’t had time for yet! I went down to the wood market, checked out the beach, shopped around… it was lovely to finally have a tiny bit of free time. On Wednesday we had a jazz choir rehearsal. They learned Butterfly in one sitting! (I think it helps that they all LOVE that song!) How cool is that going to be when Soila comes??? They can work on that with her! *jealous*
Mrs.Venter also gave me a mission. She told me to take it very seriously – she wanted me to pick out my wedding gift from her. She said that I may as well pick out something I really want instead of her just guessing and then I might not like it. I honestly think anything she would’ve given me would have been awesome (I certainly wasn’t expecting anything!) She also said not to look at the price – if it’s really what I want than she’ll get it!
So I took Joel with me on my mission (also because I was supposed to find out sneakily what he liked so she could get him something too!) So after checking out a lot of shops we finally stumbled across this art shop. It was the most amazing art pieces I’ve ever seen! This guy from Okahanja creates these pieces. They aren’t just paintings – they all have different things on them like wood carvings of animals, masks and what I got – porcupine quills. He also paints with sand. So cool! I would have bought every piece in the store if I had enough money (and a house big enough!)
I found the cheapest painting I could and still thought it was too much money. I went back to Mrs.Venter to tell her what I found and told her I’d gladly split the cost with her but of course she wouldn’t hear any of it!
So I now have an amazing porcupine quill/sand ‘painting’ which I hopefully can get on the plane!
Our last few shows were great. The staging wasn’t quite as neat as Windhoek because we had way less space (and we didn’t have all the fancy lights and stuff too) but the audience loved it!! They seemed WAY more receptive than the audiences in Windhoek! They decided to add one extra show on Saturday afternoon for all the school children. It was just so great to have people clap after each song, and actually laugh at jokes. I think it was because it was a much more intimate space. The choir wasn’t miked which I also think made a big difference.
We had a lovely little reception last night after the final performance. Tons of food, speeches and gifts all around!
It’s really sad to be leaving so early! One month is most definitely not long enough!!
It’s weird too because last time I didn’t feel so sad about leaving because I knew I was coming back in a year for the musical. But now that’s finished and I have no idea when I’ll be able to come back! But I know I definitely will!!
This morning was a bright and early morning! The shuttle came to get me at 6:40! ew.
It’s now noon and I’m just chilling at the Windhoek airport. My flight doesn’t leave until 8pm which is unfortunate! At least I found a plug in for my computer so I can watch some movies and stuff! Hopefully they won’t kick me out of this café! Heehee
Well…I guess that’s about it for my blog again.
Until the next Africa trip….
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The rest of Windhoek...
Our last two shows in Windhoek went really well. The audience had way more people in it than Friday (apparently no one goes out on Friday nights in Africa!)
Sunday was an excited day... the rest of Mascato left to go back home except for the jazz choir. We did a workshop with the Maranatha Singers in the morning (They did my arrangement of Prayer of St.Francis last year and now they’re doing my arrangement of Mary, Did You Know?)
We taught them 5 pieces – Sweet Spirit (which went really fast because everyone in the jazz choir knows it), Kapalongo, Hold Me Rock Me, Mary, Did You Know?, and Betelehemu. (sp?) It was really fun – they are a fantastic choir!
That evening was the big Afro Shine show at the Warehouse. This show is going to be broadcast on NBC in 3 weeks! It was so much fun! There were a bunch of Namibian artists, some of who are considered living legends and have been singing since the apartheid! The jazz choir sang two songs, Sweet Spirit and Even the Pain. At first it was hard to tell if the audience liked us because they were so quiet. (We were VERY different than the rest of the acts) But they loved it! They started clapping and cheering before we even finished the song!!
Then Afro Shine was up! They are so friggin’ huge here – it’s like always walking around with celebrities! They only did 4 songs; Hope, Lightening Girl, Ti Mama and Everyone. The jazz choir backed them up on the last two. People kept calling for an encore but we didn’t really have anything prepared and also because it’s on TV I don’t really think we were able to do one!
It was really fun playing with them though!! I had a great time.
Scott left that evening with the high school kids that needed to get back to Swakop. The rest of us stayed one more night and took a combi back the next day.
It was pretty uneventful except for the flat tire we got about 50 minutes from home! Boo!! At least it wasn’t as bad as Scott’s! He got one on the way home (about an hour outside of Windhoek) and it didn’t get fixed until 3 in the morning! And then they still had to drive about another 3 hours home!!
We're back in chilly Swakopmund now. We get a few days off before our first rehearsal (which will be on thursday night). Should be interesting - the space that we'll perform at here is WAY different/smaller than in Windhoek! Hopefully it goes smoothly though!
See you all in a week! (and 18 days till the wedding!!!)
Sunday was an excited day... the rest of Mascato left to go back home except for the jazz choir. We did a workshop with the Maranatha Singers in the morning (They did my arrangement of Prayer of St.Francis last year and now they’re doing my arrangement of Mary, Did You Know?)
We taught them 5 pieces – Sweet Spirit (which went really fast because everyone in the jazz choir knows it), Kapalongo, Hold Me Rock Me, Mary, Did You Know?, and Betelehemu. (sp?) It was really fun – they are a fantastic choir!
That evening was the big Afro Shine show at the Warehouse. This show is going to be broadcast on NBC in 3 weeks! It was so much fun! There were a bunch of Namibian artists, some of who are considered living legends and have been singing since the apartheid! The jazz choir sang two songs, Sweet Spirit and Even the Pain. At first it was hard to tell if the audience liked us because they were so quiet. (We were VERY different than the rest of the acts) But they loved it! They started clapping and cheering before we even finished the song!!
Then Afro Shine was up! They are so friggin’ huge here – it’s like always walking around with celebrities! They only did 4 songs; Hope, Lightening Girl, Ti Mama and Everyone. The jazz choir backed them up on the last two. People kept calling for an encore but we didn’t really have anything prepared and also because it’s on TV I don’t really think we were able to do one!
It was really fun playing with them though!! I had a great time.
Scott left that evening with the high school kids that needed to get back to Swakop. The rest of us stayed one more night and took a combi back the next day.
It was pretty uneventful except for the flat tire we got about 50 minutes from home! Boo!! At least it wasn’t as bad as Scott’s! He got one on the way home (about an hour outside of Windhoek) and it didn’t get fixed until 3 in the morning! And then they still had to drive about another 3 hours home!!
We're back in chilly Swakopmund now. We get a few days off before our first rehearsal (which will be on thursday night). Should be interesting - the space that we'll perform at here is WAY different/smaller than in Windhoek! Hopefully it goes smoothly though!
See you all in a week! (and 18 days till the wedding!!!)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
pictures!
if you wanna check out some pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39094&l=eae3e&id=505442150
and
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37013&l=9d199&id=505442150
Shows and Daan Vailjoen
YAY! The internet is working again at the house we’re staying at!!
We’ve now made it through 2 shows and a preview. It’s actually going quite smooth too! We now have monitors, which has helped SO much! We also moved my keyboard so I have communication with everyone!
The preview show on Wednesday morning for the school kids went pretty well. They seemed to enjoy it but not necessarily understand it. My favorite part was when the narrators ask at one point “Do you understand what is happening?” and half the audience replied “NO!” heehee
On Thursday morning we went to Elizabeth’s house. She’s a friend of Engelhardts (and Scott know’s her well too) She’s originally from USA but has been living in Africa since the early ‘90’s. Her house is INCREDIBLE!! The nicest house I think I’ve ever been in! We had an amazing brunch outside under her little thatched roof area. After that Joel, Engelhardt and I went swimming in her outdoor pool. So nice! She has two beautiful big dogs too that jumped in after they came back from their walk. Funny stuff!
Opening night on Thursday was good. There was quite a big crowd there.
So yesterday morning though, we did something completely not musical related! Scott found out that there were some geocaches about 18 km out of Windhoek in a game reserve called Daan Vailjoen. So Joel, Scott and I headed out there for the morning. We first went to The Roof of Africa Inn for a yummy breakfast. (SO weird to be there without 80 koko’s running around!)
Daan Vailjoen is sort of a campsite/picnic site/game reserve with a restaurant. We made it around 10:30 and paid the entrance fee (a whole $10 Namibian…which works out to about $1.40) awesome!
We decided to do the game drive before finding the geocaches. It’s a really short drive (6.8km) and they have no predators (which is awesome because you can get out of your car and walk around!)
We literally drove on the drive for maybe 30 seconds when we rounded a bend right into 8 giraffes!! 2 of them standing right on the road in front of us! It was amazing! We got out of the car and walked around with them for a bit while they eyed us wearily. There were 2 babies too!! SO CUTE!
That was by far the best part of the gamedrive….we saw some wildebeests and oryx from far away – nothing like those giraffes. The views were amazing from up there though.
After the game drive we decided to do the walk (1.8km) The geocache was along this as well. It’s not really a path you follow, more like a dried riverbed and grassy areas with some spray painted rocks here and there to guide you. When you get to the end you end up at a ‘lake’ where the animals all go to drink. That was really awesome…as soon as we arrived there was a herd of eland and oryx. We’ve never seen eland before in the wold so that was really neat! There was just one (sort of) scary part when we walked through some wildebeests laying in the shade. Two of them got up when we passed and stared as down! They have some mean looking horns!!
The lake area was beautiful! Once the herds ran off we just hung around there for a bit watching all the birds/ducks swim around. There was a beautiful big blue crane that flew by too. Amazing!
After the walk back we went straight to the restaurant and downed a bunch of cold drinks! It was HOT out! (and so so dry!) We saw a bunch of baboons on the way to the restaurant. One was trying to get into someones car!
After some refreshing showers we made it to the theatre for the evening show. Unfortunately there was a really small crowd (maybe about 40 people?) Apparently there was not very much advertising in the past couple weeks for the show. We have a matinee and an evening show today so hopefully there’ll be more people!
I think that’s about it right now – I gotta go have a shower!
We’ve now made it through 2 shows and a preview. It’s actually going quite smooth too! We now have monitors, which has helped SO much! We also moved my keyboard so I have communication with everyone!
The preview show on Wednesday morning for the school kids went pretty well. They seemed to enjoy it but not necessarily understand it. My favorite part was when the narrators ask at one point “Do you understand what is happening?” and half the audience replied “NO!” heehee
On Thursday morning we went to Elizabeth’s house. She’s a friend of Engelhardts (and Scott know’s her well too) She’s originally from USA but has been living in Africa since the early ‘90’s. Her house is INCREDIBLE!! The nicest house I think I’ve ever been in! We had an amazing brunch outside under her little thatched roof area. After that Joel, Engelhardt and I went swimming in her outdoor pool. So nice! She has two beautiful big dogs too that jumped in after they came back from their walk. Funny stuff!
Opening night on Thursday was good. There was quite a big crowd there.
So yesterday morning though, we did something completely not musical related! Scott found out that there were some geocaches about 18 km out of Windhoek in a game reserve called Daan Vailjoen. So Joel, Scott and I headed out there for the morning. We first went to The Roof of Africa Inn for a yummy breakfast. (SO weird to be there without 80 koko’s running around!)
Daan Vailjoen is sort of a campsite/picnic site/game reserve with a restaurant. We made it around 10:30 and paid the entrance fee (a whole $10 Namibian…which works out to about $1.40) awesome!
We decided to do the game drive before finding the geocaches. It’s a really short drive (6.8km) and they have no predators (which is awesome because you can get out of your car and walk around!)
We literally drove on the drive for maybe 30 seconds when we rounded a bend right into 8 giraffes!! 2 of them standing right on the road in front of us! It was amazing! We got out of the car and walked around with them for a bit while they eyed us wearily. There were 2 babies too!! SO CUTE!
That was by far the best part of the gamedrive….we saw some wildebeests and oryx from far away – nothing like those giraffes. The views were amazing from up there though.
After the game drive we decided to do the walk (1.8km) The geocache was along this as well. It’s not really a path you follow, more like a dried riverbed and grassy areas with some spray painted rocks here and there to guide you. When you get to the end you end up at a ‘lake’ where the animals all go to drink. That was really awesome…as soon as we arrived there was a herd of eland and oryx. We’ve never seen eland before in the wold so that was really neat! There was just one (sort of) scary part when we walked through some wildebeests laying in the shade. Two of them got up when we passed and stared as down! They have some mean looking horns!!
The lake area was beautiful! Once the herds ran off we just hung around there for a bit watching all the birds/ducks swim around. There was a beautiful big blue crane that flew by too. Amazing!
After the walk back we went straight to the restaurant and downed a bunch of cold drinks! It was HOT out! (and so so dry!) We saw a bunch of baboons on the way to the restaurant. One was trying to get into someones car!
After some refreshing showers we made it to the theatre for the evening show. Unfortunately there was a really small crowd (maybe about 40 people?) Apparently there was not very much advertising in the past couple weeks for the show. We have a matinee and an evening show today so hopefully there’ll be more people!
I think that’s about it right now – I gotta go have a shower!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Internet...
Finding internet (and time) in Windhoek to update this has been quite challenging! The house we're staying at had internet but it stopped working the very first day we arrived! boo
Unfortunately the cafe we've been going to doesn't have wireless so we can't use our laptops. It also doesn't accept memory sticks so I can't write out a blog first and then just copy and paste!
I have lots and lots to tell but not enough time at the internet cafes to do so! I think Joel and I will be coming back a day later now (on monday) so I will be writing big posts then (and posting pictures too!!)
Hope everything is going great at home! Especially school for those that just started!
Unfortunately the cafe we've been going to doesn't have wireless so we can't use our laptops. It also doesn't accept memory sticks so I can't write out a blog first and then just copy and paste!
I have lots and lots to tell but not enough time at the internet cafes to do so! I think Joel and I will be coming back a day later now (on monday) so I will be writing big posts then (and posting pictures too!!)
Hope everything is going great at home! Especially school for those that just started!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Windhoek
So we made it to Windhoek on Sunday afternoon. It was a pretty uneventful trip but a really nice day for a drive! Windhoek's weather is WAY better than Swakop's right now. It's been beautiful here and yesterday was the first day of spring! Yay!
We've had some pretty long rehearsal days at the theatre already. There's a ballet studio in the theatre that we've been using quite a bit. (It's nice to have the wall of mirrors to help clean up movement.)
The stage looks quite neat - they have 5 big circles that are on different levels that the choir moves around and does movement on. It's been a bit of a challenge but they're adapting quite well!
On Sunday night we had an orchestral rehearsal. It was nice to finally hear all the strings/French horn. Karl Jenkins is kind of funny - he'll write incredibly easy stuff and then the last 8 bars of the song are ridiculously hard!! At least the string palyers seem to be able to handle it all right. (I wrote the horn parts so those are all pretty easy because I've never written for French horn before!)
Yesterday morning Garth phoned us bright and early to say that Afro Shine can go rehearse at the Warehouse (where their gig will be in Sunday night)
Scott and I dropped Joel off and just hung out for a bit before we thought we'd go to breakfast. They were just about to practice their new song, Everyone, but most of the band wasn't their yet. So they asked me quickly to come up and play with Joel and the bass player. I can't remember if I've said this before but it's an awesome song!! It was actually written by the same guy who writes for the Backstreet Boys!!
So, after we finished the boys all said they liked having me play and wanted me to play for the show as well. Garth went and talked to the manager then and came bakc and said that I was playing for the show. I said "cool. So I'm playing for Everyone." and he replied "no, everyTHING!"
So now I'm playing for the entire show (which is 5 songs, so not that bad) It was actually really fun though! We rehearsed when the whole band got there until noon. The show is actually going to be broadcast on NBC TV here! Crazy!!
Joel, Scott and I hit up a mall afterwards for some lunch and shopping before rehearsal at 3.
We got to the theatre at 3 but everything is so unorganized that we didn't start rehaersal until after 5! (And Mascato had been there since 1!!)
We did a full run through in the evening which was quite frustrating! From where I was i couldn't hear a thing! I'm supposed to be cueing the strings, percussionist and the marimba group but I really had no communication with ANYONE! We had no monitors so we couldn't hear the choir or the main characters or each other! I'm hoping today will be a little bit better! Apparently we're going to be spending a couple of hours tonight just on sound! That will be lovely!
I think that's about all to report right now! Tomorrow is our *cry* first performance! That's so scary!! It's just a preview matinee that high school students will be attending though... hopefully it goes well! Tonight is the first time they're trying a run-thru with the costumes!
Alrighty...I'm gonna go get some lunch! Thanks to everyone for posting wedding pictures! It looked like so much fun!!
We've had some pretty long rehearsal days at the theatre already. There's a ballet studio in the theatre that we've been using quite a bit. (It's nice to have the wall of mirrors to help clean up movement.)
The stage looks quite neat - they have 5 big circles that are on different levels that the choir moves around and does movement on. It's been a bit of a challenge but they're adapting quite well!
On Sunday night we had an orchestral rehearsal. It was nice to finally hear all the strings/French horn. Karl Jenkins is kind of funny - he'll write incredibly easy stuff and then the last 8 bars of the song are ridiculously hard!! At least the string palyers seem to be able to handle it all right. (I wrote the horn parts so those are all pretty easy because I've never written for French horn before!)
Yesterday morning Garth phoned us bright and early to say that Afro Shine can go rehearse at the Warehouse (where their gig will be in Sunday night)
Scott and I dropped Joel off and just hung out for a bit before we thought we'd go to breakfast. They were just about to practice their new song, Everyone, but most of the band wasn't their yet. So they asked me quickly to come up and play with Joel and the bass player. I can't remember if I've said this before but it's an awesome song!! It was actually written by the same guy who writes for the Backstreet Boys!!
So, after we finished the boys all said they liked having me play and wanted me to play for the show as well. Garth went and talked to the manager then and came bakc and said that I was playing for the show. I said "cool. So I'm playing for Everyone." and he replied "no, everyTHING!"
So now I'm playing for the entire show (which is 5 songs, so not that bad) It was actually really fun though! We rehearsed when the whole band got there until noon. The show is actually going to be broadcast on NBC TV here! Crazy!!
Joel, Scott and I hit up a mall afterwards for some lunch and shopping before rehearsal at 3.
We got to the theatre at 3 but everything is so unorganized that we didn't start rehaersal until after 5! (And Mascato had been there since 1!!)
We did a full run through in the evening which was quite frustrating! From where I was i couldn't hear a thing! I'm supposed to be cueing the strings, percussionist and the marimba group but I really had no communication with ANYONE! We had no monitors so we couldn't hear the choir or the main characters or each other! I'm hoping today will be a little bit better! Apparently we're going to be spending a couple of hours tonight just on sound! That will be lovely!
I think that's about all to report right now! Tomorrow is our *cry* first performance! That's so scary!! It's just a preview matinee that high school students will be attending though... hopefully it goes well! Tonight is the first time they're trying a run-thru with the costumes!
Alrighty...I'm gonna go get some lunch! Thanks to everyone for posting wedding pictures! It looked like so much fun!!
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