My girls had their first performance on Monday... after 5 weeks and 9 classes, the NYCs pulled off a great routine through seemingly insurmountable odds... can you feel a story coming on? I know I can...

It has been a typically busy month, this time due to the South Asia Leadership Conference we are hosting for Habitat for Humanity International. Between the logistics and the budget I was beginning to become a better juggler than Knowlesy... yet somehow there always seemed to be just enough time to teach some hip hop at a local gym...

The group numbers varied somewhat week by week; at its peak, 10 kids were attending, however by the final couple of weeks we were back down to 7, with only 4 or 5 to perform, due to the proximity of the date to exams...

So with a handful of performers, a reasonably complex mix and some tight choreography, the crew was set to perform in front of the school assembly, after the lunchtime break...

As I spent the morning balancing the Asia Pacific office's requests and trying to complete my own facts and figures, I couldn't help but slowly become more and anxious, particularly as the number and (and nervousness) of messages from the girls increased... L to R: Me, Natalie, Kirsty, Liz, Charlene

An hour and a half before I was due to depart for the performance venue, I decided to take take a quick moment for myself, and pour a cup of coffee; after all, 5 minutes wouldn't hurt... As the first drop broke at the base of my cup, the skies opened and unleashed the biggest storm we have had for months... within 10 minutes, most of the roads between my office and the school were inundated with half a meter of water... sewerage was making a triumphant rise to the surface (that's a terrible pun, I know) while rickshaws transformed into gondolas, albeit with far less romance and certainly less finesse...

Traffic was no longer traffic; when you're stuck in the same place for more than 30 minutes, you're officially scenery...

So I ran... I ran like I've never run before, I ran through the rain and the traffic (scenery) and the sewerage and the puzzled locals who couldn't believe anyone could be foolish enough to navigate the newly birthed rivers across the road...

I finally found a CNG brave enough to take me the rest of the way... the man was Bond, James Bond... sensing my urgency, he used his super-human like sense for where pot-holes might be to avoid any damage, and beat vehicles 10 times its size to open lanes and pathways...

Finally I arrived at the school, set up the laptop, the girls danced, we were all nervous, yet got through it, then had a group hug and went home...

Not the best ending to a story, but I've been typing for 12 minutes, which is 12 minutes extra I don't have...

Although I will make time to say this: I am so proud of those girls...

Speaking of which, I must have shown the videos of Lockdown and Blindsight to over 1,000 people by now... Hope everyone is doing well, and that Project Beatz is in full swing...
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