Sep 12 2024 14 mins
Welcome to the second episode of the Season 5 WAB podcast. In this episode, two Grade 12 students, Andy and Jeremy from High School student club Art Amplifiers have taken over as hosts to interview Baba the Storyteller, who visited WAB recently to share his insights on Building Our Learning Community with Our Shared Stories. They talked about Baba's personal stories, his musical journey, and his experiences at WAB.
Baba introduced his travels throughout the world sharing music and culture, through his practice of an ancient African tradition called Jaliyaa in the Bamana language, or griot in French. In West Africa, a Jaliyaa is a historian, storyteller, poet, and musician, whose craft dates back thousands of years.
This US-born contemporary griot also opened up about his journey searching for identity, "my journey out of the U.S. and to Africa was just part of my journey to discover who I am," and "I learned by leaving the U.S. and going to Africa". Now, he enjoys using storytelling as a medium to help build connections and communities throughout the world. "I want people to understand how much more similar we are in this world than different," said him.
Grade 12 student Jeremy invited Baba to talk about his experience at WAB.. The storyteller said he found "a holistic, natural approach to relationships" here, and "how WAB is a very culturally inclusive school". He shared his idea of diversity, advocating for a deeper, more holistic approach that celebrates commonalities among humanity. This is what he has found at WAB, where "two students may not look the same, still share so much in common. He called it "true diversity".
Thank you to our students for hosting this conversation with Baba, and be sure to listen to the full episode.