Personal Reflection I have learned a lot from this experience at Bi-Okoto. First, I will talk about what I learned about the organization. I learned that they are a non-profit that seeks to educate the community about the African culture that they come from. The center provides many drum and dance classes while providing some theater space for local performances. They have three main buildings including: the office area, the theater room, and then in the back they have all of the drums and props stored for future use. On our first visit to Bi-Okoto we toured all of the buildings and sat down for a drum class that consisted of only our LC and an instructor. We then proceeded to drum for roughly an hour. After that we were given our first task of researching various grants in which they could apply for the upcoming year. We then walked to the first computer where I sat down and began to do work on the spreadsheet they had created with the list of grants. After about 1.5 hours of work on the spreadsheet it was time to go and they said they would email us the spreadsheet to be completed later. Once we received the spreadsheet I found that all the work that I did on it the day before had been deleted. This event shows that the overall functions of Bi-Okoto were quite unorganized and frustrating at times. Although I was frustrated from all my work being deleted I did learn a lot about the culture of Africa and the various dances and drumming techniques.
This experience with Bi-Okoto has changed attitude towards African culture greatly. Before our first encounter with Bi-Okoto I though this whole project was going to be terrible, because I didn’t want to go to the center just to take phone calls and such. After my first visit my view on the experience changed completely. I realized that learning about their culture was actually fun, and that I was pretty good with the drumming. Though some of the things they had us do, such as call all the libraries in Alabama, Arkansas, and Connecticut, were strange they made up for it by providing a cultural experience that will be unmatched for a long time to come in my life. Overall, the experience at the center was great fun, as I got to spend time with some of my closest friends while learning about West African Culture.
The role that I assumed for this project was basically just the person who makes sure everyone who wanted to go experience the atmosphere of Bi-Okoto got to go. I believe I assumed this role because I was the only person to go all of the times to the center, so I got to spent the most time with all of the people that work there. I was put in charge of making sur the tasks that they would give to us got completed. Also, whenever we went they would ask me about the progress of the various spreadsheets which I happily explained that they had been completed and would be sent to them by the end of the day.
With the remainder of this reflection I would like to share some additional thoughts about my experience here at Bi-Okoto. They are a very unorganized company that I don’t see what their goal is as a non-profit. I’m not sure if it was just a bad time when we went or what the issue was but there were never any other people in the facility other than our LC, exept for the last day when there were a few kids in our drum and dance class. We took a considerable amount of time each day we visited to simply drum and dance. I understand that they want to entertain us to make us want to come back, but I didn’t feel like I impacted anyone by drumming and dancing with my LC. There was also a lot of wasted time, they would leave us sitting by ourselves while they would be creating the assignment for the day. We would ask if there was anything they wanted us to do while we were sitting there but I believe that they were all just so unorganized that they really had no bigger plan of what we could do for them at that time. I want to say again that my overall experience there was a positive one however, I believe we could have been put to better use if they were just a bit more organized.