Christmas in Africa

If you have not heard the 12 Days of Christmas as done by the A Capella choir Straight No Chaser, it kinda dovetails into my wonderful experience on Thursday:



These guys' story and CD are great by the way, but back to the story. The last part of their '12 days' sings of Christmas in Africa, which is just what the girls' school did. Some (probably now hated) person at the school suggested "Hey, why don't we have the kids put on Broadway's The Lion King!" I just can't imagine the coordination with every class in the school with the decorations; the learning of the parts for all the principles in that play; to the costumes (we all had to buy specific color sweatsuits and they did the rest). Logistically, these people could have moved armies in Iraq and had time left over for lunch!

They had two shows because all parents were showing up. We had 'official' playbills upon entering and a hand-made Pride Rock on the stage. When we had all 50 or so kids with their paras on stage, some signing, some singing, one or two crying, a few waving to their parents, all the swinging and stimming and smiling; I understood the beauty of the chaos theory.

There was lots of great singing from the kids; some wonderful miscues (one child insisted "NO LAUGHING, No Clapping, only cheering...HEY, DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?"). My kids were just extras and were paraded out only a few times, but I didn't really care. I was happy for all the kids, upset for a couple who were having difficulty, and proud of those who stood up, spoke and sang and made it a wonderful show. Our principal said at the beginning: "Most schools like ours won't even try to put on shows like this, but we like to see our kids and our parents surprised and proud at what we can accomplish." I don't know about anyone else in that auditorium, but I was proud of the whole lot of them!