Limpopo Writing Project Day 8

We began the day as we always do singing beautiful songs and with a prayer. Then in honor of the 4th of July, I sang My Country Tis of Thee and This Land is Your Land. The teachers suggested that I share the words with them so that they could sing it with me. We did this at the end of the day and we also watched a video of fire works on the 4th of July. They asked me about Apple Pie and Ice Cream and I explained that they are part of the American tradition. I thanked the teachers for helping me celebrate the day and they thanked me for inviting them into America.

Today we talked about writing conferences and we practiced as a group both as the author and the questioner. We discussed the ethical responsibility of the author to be as clear as possible in the writing and when answering questions. We also discussed the ethical responsibility of the questioner to ask good questions and to really listen to what the author is saying. As we practiced this, we practiced how we would teach our learners about it.

Today was Cony's day. She shared her journal for the first time today, was a volunteer for the writing conferences session, and shared her demonstration today. Her demonstration was on invitations and she had created some invitations for us to look at. It was an exciting day for Cony and for all of us.

Ngokoana is here for the week and we are so grateful to have her wise words and insights in the workshop. Teko comes tomorrow to make a film of our project, and we are very excited about it. We looked at Ilna Colemere's incredible technology Prezi that is on the Prezi site, and at some other educational videos.

Today Hobbs announced that he joined facebook and we were excited for another way for us to keep in touch. I shared Sean's story on Facebook about his stepping into the hall at the university to get some help for skyping. We loved the story. Then I passed on Kalpana's request that we share some of our participant's writing on the blog. I received a number of them, and I'll share one or two of them each day.

This is from Cony, her first journal that she has shared with the group:

Thanks for everything LWP. I had never said anything about LWP until today. I am blessed and special. I am not here by mistake, never mind the slow pacing of my grasping the ideas. I came here blind and blank, but now I have realized that I can do it.

I never thought that I could write something that can be read to people and that would make sense. The Limpopo Writing Project taught me that whatever comes into your mind, write it. It is of importance.

I am dreaming of publishing a book soon. Thoughts, sweet and bad memories were there before, but I could not vomit them out. The project taught me to take whatever is in me and share with others to get relief.

Authors are not born. A pen and a book are going to be my friends henceforth. I know that I am going to do it. I thought that I should have known about this project before, but it was not the time. This is the right time.

By Cony
July 4, 2011