Handel in the African Bush

Handel in the African Bush

Today I was teaching 12 of our new students. One of the new girls the
class is Loina Bwanga. She is the daughter of Mr. Bwanga, who is in
charge of our chickens. He has a large family who live on our
property near the chicken operation. His wife recently had twin
daughters. Loina is 10 or 11, has been going to a school near us,
speaks fairly good English, but can't read. (This is a function of the
school she was attending, not her intelligence.) So she is in this
class where we are starting at the beginning.

As part of their early learning experience at our school, they get to
do things that they may never have done before, like coloring, cutting
paper, gluing, and other things. Today they were cutting pictures
from greeting cards and gluing them onto a piece of construction
paper.

Some of the cards were Christmas cards. To my shock and wonder, Loina
began singing "For unto us a child is born" from Handel's Messiah. I
asked her where she had heard it or learned it. She said that they
use to have a CD of it, although it now skips. I started singing it
with her. I am still amazed that this family that lives in the
African bush in very basic conditions has been listening to the great
music of Handel.