News and new shoes

By Darrell Laurant

Published: September 22, 2008

If your definition of “news” is something that happened yesterday, this isn’t it. But it was news to me — and as a columnist, that makes it fair game.

I’m talking about a trip by a group of Lynchburgers to a ghastly slum in Nairobi, Kenya, back in July. I’m talking about the macarena, the Virginia reel and the Texas Two Step.

And if Axi Walker never accomplishes another thing in her life — and I have a feeling she’ll accomplish a great deal — she has managed, at age 18, to influence 44 lives (and 88 feet) at the same time. Not many of us ever get to do that.

Walker went to Nairobi largely because her older sister, Holly, wanted her to go. Holly was planning to work at a clinic run by the Mercy Care Centre in Mathare Valley, an area of Nairobi with an international reputation for being two square miles of misery.

“Between 500,000 and 800,000 people live there,” said Betsy Garrard, an E.C. Glass teacher who also made the trip, “with no running water and no sanitary facilities.”

And when political violence erupted in Kenya earlier this year, Garrard said, “more than 500 people were killed in those two square miles.”

Thanks to teachers Garrard and Patti Worsham, E.C. Glass has developed a relationship with the children at Mercy Care Centre’s school, located in the epicenter of Mathare Valley. News & Advance reporter Annie McCallum wrote a very compelling story about their most recent visit shortly after it happened.

That story, however, didn’t mention Axi Walker. So I will.

A senior at Chatham Hall School in Pittsylvania County and a Lynchburg native, she wasn’t sure what she could possibly contribute to the humanitarian effort while Holly was helping the medical staff. Then she mentioned that she loved to dance.

“The previous trip I’d made there,” Garrard said, “I saw that some of the students had organized a team to compete in an international dance contest. They actually danced pretty well, but their costumes were ragged and many of them were barefoot.”

Could Axi Walker teach them some American dances?

“I wasn’t sure,” she said, “but I thought it was worth a try.”

At one point during her preparation, she and her mother made a routine stop at the Carolina Connection, a Lynchburg store that sells dance supplies.

“We were just making conversation,” said Diane “Misty” Walker, Axi’s mom, “and it came up that Axi was going to Kenya, and they gave her over 100 pairs of ballet slippers, in all different sizes.”

Axi also received moral support from Tyrone Brooks of the Virginia School of the Arts and correographing help from Keith Lee of Dance Theater of Lynchburg and the staff at Forest Dance Academy.

“The students at the school agreed to sew new costumes if we’d bring the cloth,” Garrard said, “so we packed it into our suitcases.”

Along with the ballet slippers, which Axi Walker said “filled about half of my bag.”

Still, even with all that paraphernalia and good intentions, Axi wasn’t sure what awaited her in the darkest part of Nairobi. What she found was a pleasant surprise — instead of her having to energize the students, it weas the other way around.

“At first, I was going to cut down to a smaller group than 44,” she said, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave anybody out.”

All of the older Mercy Care students spoke English, and it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The language of the feet and the beat is universal.

“We brought all kinds of music,” Walker said. “Some of it was sort of western techno, and they loved it.”

School is year-around at Mercy Care, because a bad day at home in Mathare Valley isn’t better than a good day in class. The alternative to school there is little food, ever present violence and no running water.

“They showed up early to practice and stayed late,” Walker said.

So what if they first put the western-style bandanas on their heads instead of around their necks? Or that they couldn’t take the new ballet shoes home because some of their parents might feel compelled to sell them for food? Over two weeks, two diverse cultures melted into one another, the Virginia girl from a private school quickly winning the confidence of kids from a place that would make even American ghettoes look upscale.

“Axi was amazing,” Betsy Garrard said. “She was like the Pied Piper.”

In the end, the 44-member dance team from Mercy Cares competed in the international contest and did well. They didn’t win, but neither were they embarrassed.

And Axi Walker’s luggage was a lot lighter on the way home.