Fednike Nozistene was a long way from home recently when she took an oppourtunity to spend two weeks in West Africa teaching young students drama and story telling.
Here in Vero Beach, Fednike is a performing arts teacher at Indian River Charter High School. She brought her experience with her to St. Martins School in The Gambia.
"The teaching experience was amazing. I taught them choreography, I also taught them stage combat and acting. So I got to teach them a lot of things in just two weeks. And it's so cool to see that even though there were a lot of differences because I teach at charter and Vero, but there were also a lot of similarities, you know, kids are kids," she said.
Despite being across the world, Fednike felt right at home in her stay.
"I wasn't only a part of just the school, it was like the whole community. You got to know everybody. And it's just so welcoming. As soon as you walk there, everyone's smiling at you. They don't know who you are, but they're smiling at you, saying, hey, welcome," she said.
Also while there, Fednike wrote her own performance, which she brought back home with her.
"It was a short, 10 minute script, and the title is the Tale of the Magic Drum. I wrote a short version for them, and it's a story about a girl who lives in Kenya, and she gets this fever dream, and her ancestors tell her, she's actually from Gambia and to go there. When I wrote this script, the kids got to dance, because there's a lot of dancing in it. We got some of the kids from the village, who don't attend St Martin's, the school I was teaching at, come and play the instruments for us. I gave it to my artistic director at my school, and he read it, and he was like, 'you need to do you need to make this like a one act. Make a one act out of it' and extend and explore it, and really live and enjoy Gambia and put what you've learned into the script," she said.
The experience had a profound impact on Fednike.
"It's just so amazing to know that there are places you can go, and it doesn't matter about the value of money, it doesn't matter about status. We may think, wow, they have so little, but to them, they had everything. Happiness is honestly, not to sound cliche, but it's who's around that makes you happy, who makes you want to get up in the morning, who you want to be around with and celebrate life with together," she said.
Fednike recalled one moment that she will carry with her for life.
"They said, are you black? I'm Haitian, I'm black. So at first I was like, that's a silly question to ask. But then the more I thought about it, I was like, no, to them, that's not a silly question. They don't have TV, they don't have anything like that. And usually the people who come to volunteer and are white Americans. It's very rare to see someone volunteer of their same skin color. I had to give them a history lesson of Haiti and how, we were taken and all that, and to explain to them that, yes, I am black, just like you. And then they lit up. They were like, wow, you're just like us, and you're in America. They were like, so we could do that too. And I just started to cry. So that was the most special part about the trip," she said.