Tanzanian student Ines Muganyizi performs at the African Student Union’s Cape to Cairo event. Photo courtesy of Liz Joslin.
There have been a few posters around campus displaying the College Voice article about the takeover of Fanning in the 1986. The sit-in was a protest aimed at making Conn as culturally diverse as the country surrounding it, and it worked. Negotiations were made via a piece of paper passed between Fanning and Blaustein and the students succeeded in their aims, thus helping to make our college a more culturally diverse place.
Have their efforts held up? The answer is yes, but some might tell you no. It seems to me that many students on campus consider Conn a milky white homogenous mixture. I won’t get into the statistics, but it’s not hard to see that we represent a wide range of races and backgrounds. It’s events like Cape to Cairo, put on by the African Student Union (ASU) last Friday, that emphasize the culture that adds color to our campus. It showed off some of the amazing culture and talent our student body has to offer.
It’s hard to classify exactly what Cape to Cairo was. It wasn’t quite a performance, and it most definitely wasn’t a presentation. “Experience” is a bit broad, but that’s what fits best: the experience of Africa on campus. Walking into the 1962 room in Cro, we were greeted by nicely set tables scattered around the room. A small stage had been set, flanked by two projector screens displaying pictures of Africa. The first event was an “authentic African dinner.” All I recognized from the buffet were the fried plantains, but I tried a bit of everything and it was all delicious.
Once it seemed that most of the audience had finished eating, the show began. It was a pleasant mix of seriousness and fun, featuring all the cultural performances that you would expect from a show about Africa, as well as many acts that helped to break some preconceptions audience members might have had. The dance performances ranged from traditional to a few different modern styles, many of which you might not expect to come out of Africa. There were spoken word poetry recitals in English and Swahili, and a gospel choir. Two fashion shows featured both men’s and women’s clothing from the continent and, in an act simply called “Gumboot,” club members performed an impressive synchronized dance; the only music came from the thwack of their rubber boots hitting the stage.
These were all fascinating, but my favorite act and the funniest of the night, was entitled “How Not To Write About Africa.” In this presentation, three ASU members acted as academics giving tongue-in-cheek advice to journalists and authors aspiring to write about Africa.
“Never show a picture of a well-adjusted African unless they have won a Nobel Prize.”
“Make sure you show that Africans have rhythm and soul and only eat things no other human would eat.”
“Always start your book with a quote from Nelson Mandela.”
It was a surprisingly varied event worthy of its expansive name, and after it was over I felt much more aware of African society and culture. The turnout was surprisingly good, despite the other events with which ASU had to compete that night. At the end of the show, we found out that half of the proceeds from ticket sales are going to be sent to an orphanage in Zimbabwe, which can’t even afford beds for the children it houses. The other half is going to a hospital in Ethiopia that treats women whose bodies have been debilitated from giving birth at too young an age.
Rarely can you find an event on campus with this trifecta of entertainment, information and charity. It was a pleasure to experience, and the type of event that Conn could do with more of. I desperately hope that more students would have wanted to experience it, too. Diversity is something that once had to be fought for on campus. Now we take it for granted. Clubs like ASU, and events like Cape to Cairo are important for our campus because they help to assert our community’s heterogeneity. •
