Grade 11 English Festival for 2009
Two bus-loads of Grade Eleven English enthusiasts slouched through Victoria Park’s gates at an ungodly hour, slurping on their vices of caffeine. After hurried farewells and empty promises to behave, we voyaged to the petrol station and waited for the follower of something even less progressive than African Time; Samuel! Late as usual!
With one bus blowing a tyre and another’s battery dying, along with an incomplete emergency kit, I must say that the morality of our country certainly can’t be questioned, because not even fifteen schoolgirls could manage wave down a helpful motorist. It was by some miracle that we eventually reached the 1820 Settler National Monument just outside Grahamstown.
In true Victorian punctuality, we snuck into the auditorium to catch the end of a cabaret, which isn’t all bowler hats and garters but rather a paradoxical take on current events. We launched into our workshops, where we learnt the importance of effective physical expression before an audience, what music can stimulate within us, the masterpieces that free writing gives birth to, all presented by very colourful people from Rhodes University. It seems liberal language, impulsive shouting and pink hair is the norm. We also had the opportunity of witnessing the performances of a monologue and abstract dancing. We learnt that with art, you must learn to patiently interpret others’ if you wish the same to be done with yours.
The catering at the festival and boarding house, where we had taken up residence, was perfectly satisfactory but Steers still made a small fortune out of us that night. We were later deserted by two of our chaperones who went to visit ‘relatives’ until all hours of the morning. Luckily they were in top form when we had to push the bus up numerous hills in a hope to get the battery going.
Building on what we had learnt the day before, sharing it with each other, interacting with students from other schools, it was a slightly woeful thing to leave the dark basements, loud auditoriums, colourful halls and vast lecture rooms for the civilisation of home. However one thing I take with me, is if we dare to break the rules of normality that bind us, we may actually come to create something of uncharacteristic excellence.
Michelle Nowers
