LAGUNA NIGUEL : Students Get Insights Into African Life

Many youngsters may know Africa only as a faraway place of famine and brutal heat, but seventh-grade students at Niguel Hills Middle School know better after listening to Evelyn Komuntale on Tuesday.

The 41-year-old Irvine resident, who was born in Zaire and raised in Uganda, took social science students at the school on a safari with the use of slides, a story and a brief cultural lesson.

Students also heard a folk song that caused many to tap their toes and sing along.

“I project the other side of Africa that people don’t always know exists,” Komuntale said during a break in presentations to several classes throughout the day.

A snow-capped Mt. Kilimanjaro, a bistro and a hot-air balloon were a few of the images that Komuntale presented on a screen next to native clothing and placards with vocabulary words from the Swahili language. Nearby were African wall hangings and wooden carvings.

Wearing a native dress called a bikembe, Komuntale taught the students how to say hello (jambo) to no problem (hakuna matata) in Swahili.

The students have been studying Africa for the past week. For them, Komuntale was a living link to the continent some 10,000 miles away.

Komuntale said she first came the United States in 1978 to visit friends.

She went to work at the Kenya tourist office in Beverly Hills for six years before going into the tour business on her own, traveling between the United States and Africa.

Two years ago, Komuntale moved to Orange County. She is a ministry coordinator at the Main Place Christian Fellowship church in Santa Ana, where she started an African outreach program.