Black History Month is coming! We are excited to partner with The Africa Channel for a unique promotion this February. Stay tuned!

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On December 26, 2010, over 50 African Ancestry family members traveled to Cameroon as part of the first ever, Ancestry Reconnection Program. The ARK Jammers Connection, an international group of musicians and music lovers who perform Acts of Random Kindness, sponsored this journey for DNA descendants of Cameroon to return to their country of origin.

There is no way to describe the impact of the 10-day experience in a single blog post. So, throughout the month, we will be sharing reflections of the trip here and on facebook.

One of the highlights for me was our visit to the primary school, Cite des Enfance in the city of Kribi. We were greeted by the 2-year old students who sang the national anthem with everything that they had.

The program that followed was a combination of poems, recitations, singing, and dancing. These primary school students are amazing. Their program was in English and French.

One of the members of our delegation, Sharon Dennis Wyeth, is a highly acclaimed children’s book author. She read her book, “Something Beautiful”, to the students and later donated 100 copies to the school.

But let me tell you….the dancing stole the show! As one member of our group put it, we are born with rhythm. It is in our DNA. Check out this showstopper.

dancing boy at school – kribi, cameroon from ralston smith on Vimeo.

Each of us was invited to leave an inspirational message for the students and plant a tree with two students to leave a legacy of something beautiful from their Cameroonian American brothers and sisters.

The entire ceremony was humbling and deeply moving.

View more photos of our experience at Cite des Enfance on our Flickr page!