Preparing for English Theater

As if our life in Africa wasn't busy enough, preparations for the big yearly English Theater Competition organized by the Peace Corps have usurped all of our precious free time since our return from vacation in mid-August until the event in mid-September. The Competition is designed to get students excited about learning English. This year's theme was 'Be the Change' and was meant to animate students' thinking about how to actively address HIV/AIDS and improve their lives. Since we would have to arrange private transportation to get to Chimoio where the competition is held, we formed two theater teams of 7 students each, enough to fill a mini-bus. Our kids love theater and regularly perform for the community. They have no trouble with hamming up a scene or putting together a storyline. But even our best students' rudimentary English skills needed a lot of work to sustain a 12-minute piece and some of our weaker students had to memorize their lines syllable by syllable. For weeks we practiced, sometimes mornings and afternoons to accommodate the school schedule, and every weekend. We patiently coached our actors' pronunciation, especially tricky phrases like 'birth control pill' and 'girl talk' or any other word with 'r' or 'th' sounds. After the first couple weeks we both knew every line of the plays, so we could stand in if our actors went missing for whatever reason. Our rehearsals drew a lot of attention, and usually by the end of each session the windows would be full of onlookers trying to catch glimpses of their classmates in funny costumes speaking English. Periodically our teams would have personality clashes, artistic differences and drama over who was missing practicing or holding up the group, but we survived. The final hectic days we had to get various permission forms typed, signed and stamped, including a highway pass our mayor had to approve, which sent us running back and forth across town.