NGOMA time

A word on NGOMA time (and no, I do not know what it stands for):

This is a one-hour talent-type show meant to help us have some fun and relax after an entire day of training and getting lectured at. I love watching it, and really enjoy it usually. Where I start having a problem is when we are forced to come up with something to present as a language class every week. Now, I’m all for jumping on the lead of another talented person who can play the guitar or choreograph a dance. I’ll follow along. The problem is that language groups are organized by your field of expertise. Therefore all the science people (me included) are in the same groups together. Last week in my group of 4 we had nothing. No ideas whatsoever.  There is a reason most of us majored in the sciences and not in the arts. There are those exceptions, however in my group of 4 none of us were talented, and neither is my new language group of 3 people. Other science groups had similar problems coming up with something entertaining. Another big problem with this is that all of our language teachers are Mozambican. When you’re from Africa you come out of the womb singing, chanting and dancing. Seriously, Mandy’s 3 year old little brother can dance JUST LIKE Michael Jackson. It’s what they do here. So I’m pretty sure that my language teacher just thinks we’re being difficult.

In my first language group, we ended up making a little poem in Portuguese just to make our language teacher happy. Fortunately for us we were not on the list to perform nor were we called out at the end of NGOMA time so we didn’t actually have to go. Then when I got switched to my new language group and we still had no ideas we decided to join up with my old language group, use the poem, and also act it out to involve 2 more people. This last week time ran out before our group got to go so I have yet to perform and I’m fine with that. Not only are there 15 language groups, but the professors and other people from the community come and perform too so it ends up going at least 2 hours. Quite honestly after a HUB day I want to go and hang out with my friends, have a beer, and unwind after being talked at all day long. Ever since NGOMA time has started we haven’t been able to do that considering it goes until 6:30 pm and our curfew is 7 pm.

In conclusion, I enjoy NGOMA time and think its fun to watch people who are far more talented than me. I just think we should leave it to the people who want to perform and who are good at performing and as an added bonus it would help us stick to our 1 hour time limit.