Connecting cultures through yoga at Harbor View Elementary
When Newport Beach yoga instructor Jill Apperson Manly read her picture book “Nothando’s Journey” to Harbor View Elementary School students for the first time Tuesday morning, she shared the story of a young girl’s quest through a place in southern Africa called Swaziland.
As she finished reading, a student of the Newport Beach school asked, “Is this based on a true story?”
“That’s a fantastic question,” Manly told him.
Little did the student know that the story’s main character, Nothando, is based on a girl Manly knew in Swaziland and that the book would soon connect the Harbor View class with students in that country more than 10,000 miles away.
More than 25 years ago, when Manly was a fifth-grade teacher at Sifundzani Elementary School in Swaziland, she met a student named Nqobile, who would later become the inspiration for her book’s main character.
“She did not speak much,” Manly said. “She enjoyed observing everything around her. The book is really about an inward journey, and for that reason, I was drawn to Nqobile.”
In the story, Nothando and her brother encounter many animals on their way to the Reed Festival, an event in Swaziland were women dance before the royal family. They assume a plethora of yoga poses named after the different animals they see.
The Harbor View students’ eyes grew wide as Manly read about the festival, the animals and Swaziland’s king and queen.
“There are beautiful illustrations in the book and a great story the kids will enjoy, but it will also expose them to a different culture and, with the yoga, they can understand the emotions we internalize,” said Sabrina Ericastilla, a first-grade teacher at Harbor View.
Manly, who developed “Nothando’s Journey” for about the past 10 years, is using it to pilot a student pen pal program connecting two schools in Southern California with two schools in Swaziland, one of which is Sifundzani.
So far, she has read the book to two classes — Ericastilla’s class at Harbor View on Tuesday and Greta Smith’s first-grade class at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Los Angeles in January.
After their reading, Smith’s students gathered to shape themselves into different yoga poses and then sat down to write letters to the Swaziland students.
“I remember having pen pals a couple of times in my life, and I hope it’s something [my students] can experience,” Smith said.
At Harbor View, students stretched into poses along with Manly’s colleague Stacey Fetterman, an instructor of children’s yoga in Newport Beach.
Afterward, the kids worked on their letters, writing their names and ages and drawing some of their favorite animals from the book.
Manly plans to mail the letters from the Harbor View and Hobart classes to Swaziland as soon as this week.
“This is a way for the students to appreciate a different and rich culture,” Manly said. “We live in a big country, and when we look outside, we need to be careful what lens we’re looking through.”
The Swaziland students also will read the book and write letters back to their counterparts in Southern California, Manly said.
The next letters to be exchanged will enable the children to write about their favorite holidays or festivals.
