African Music Concert

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

After a busy week with Alex, he was on the train back to Rostock when we had to get ready for that evening's concert.

http://gospelkids.ovh.org/page0/page0.php

Their director comes to St. Jean to teach singing but this year, something controversial took place.

The kids learned the songs that the "real" Gospel Kids group were going to use in the concert. We were then given a form to fill out if we wanted our kids (or rather, they wanted) to perform with Gospel Kids or not. Ronnie wanted to and Talia didn't.

That was fine but it turns out that the tickets were 20 euros (15 for children) to see this concert. They did offer a very few at 10 euros each but they were long gone before we decided what to do. Part of the delay was because I didn't know if I had to get one for our "German" student or not (if I had looked at the schedule...)

A lot of parents were upset and to be honest, many are not in the same financial position we are (St. Jean is officially classified as a economically disadvantaged area). I noticed that some parents came solo. Out of principal, I was happy to forget the whole thing and pick up Ronnie afterwards. Daniel agreed with me but refused to consider this. Just buy us all tickets, end of story.

I was in a bad mood leaving. Ronnie had to be dropped off at 3pm and he went to spend the night at a friend's, who was also in the concert (which was good as we could leave right away). I talked to the director and she said she's discussed this ad naseum and is not sure of doing this again.

The technicality was that it was voluntary. The kids learn the songs and then we had to actually fill out the form for them to participate. This was not obligatory and officially outside of school. Gospel Kids had found a good way of getting more kids in their concert and selling more tickets to it as well!

It was held at the Palais de Congres, the site recently of the infamous 60th anniversary NATO conference, and thus Obama visit...

The concert was okay. I would have enjoyed it more without all the background politics. Some of the soloists were kind of hurting but the dancing was good. Turns out, the chorus was behind a thin curtain for most of the concert. Ronnie was on the other side so we couldn't see him. They did drop the curtain towards the end but we still couldn't see him. We had paid 70 euros all of us to see our son, when we couldn't and he was behind a curtain...

They were all wearing Gospel Kids T-shirts. I joked with Daniel "After all this, I hope they let them keep the T-shirts!" Guess waht?!? They didn't! They had to hand them back!! Luckily, we learned that the next day...

Still seething but I'll get over it. I just feel like we've been taken for a ride.

PICTURES AND VIDEO TO FOLLOW