Music is an integral part of my life. More than that, I think music is an integral part of each of us. Speaking as a potential art history minor, I believe “art”- not just something like painting, but all forms, like music, dance, film, visual (painting, sculpting, etc.), writing, speaking, and so on- is the ultimate expression of human culture. In particular, music is the ultimate expression of emotion. Music resonates somewhere in your chest where you feel things like love and compassion. I think everyone feels the power music can have in your life at some point, but I also think people often forget or don’t fully appreciate the gravity of what they’re experiencing when music touches them. Having taken my freshman year of college off from playing music (aside from the occasional evening sneaking into the school of music to play marimba or piano after everyone had left), even I was beginning to forget how much music really affects me. Being here in Africa and seeing so many incredible musicians- ages 5 to 50- reminded me of that.

As I mentioned in my last post, I met my new musician friend Yongama at the top of Table Mountain on Wednesday. Listening to the way he spoke of music- as a gift from God, given in place of the education he can’t afford- was incredibly inspiring to me. He also told me, when I told him I sometimes have a hard time improvising, that “You just have to let the music flow from you. Just let go, and let it come from inside you.”

Yesterday, I had a similarly inspiring moment with the kids in the Amy Biehl Foundation after school program at the Siyazingisa Primary School. The school in section 2 of the Gugulethu Township. The township is divided into four sections- at least two of which we cannot safely visit. Section 3 has a serious gang problem, resulting in daily killings. I learned today that the one of the other of the 3 Global LEAD subgroups’ bus guide through the township they toured told them about Section 4: “White people don’t go in there, because if they do, they don’t come out alive.” According to my group’s guide, Izzy, section 2 no longer has a problem with gangsters because the community rose up against it and cleaned it out. Even so, the threat of safety issues- drugs, violence, rape- is still very real and present in section 2. The Amy Biehl Foundation (please, check out the website- I don’t think I’ll ever have time to fully explain everything I’d like to about the organization, and why it was formed) started after school programs, running daily from around 2:30-5 at the kids’ schools, to keep the kids off the streets and away from the danger they would be susceptible to in the otherwise unsupervised hours before their parents get home from work. The ASPs provide classes and activities for the kids, ranging from learning about the environment to the “Girl Guide Class” (similar to Girl Scouts) to field hockey and “football” to music and dance. (Music! Aha! There is a relevant point to all this!) Visiting the different classes, we were greeted by such warmth and happiness from the kids- though often, at first, it was shy and tentative. The last two classes I visited were involved with music- one a music class with marimbas and drums, the other the Girl Guide class where they sang two songs for us.

Being a percussionist myself, I sat in the very front and center of the music room- a small brick building with tiny plastic chairs for the kids, a green chalkboard, three small marimbas (above two octaves in length each- one for bass, treble, and so on), a few hand drums, some shakers, a tambourine, and a cowbell. They began to play for us. About midway through the first of 5 or 6 songs, I was in tears. I somehow managed not to make a spectacle of myself, but I could barely keep the sobs in. It wasn’t because the kids were sad, or were playing particularly emotional music- to the contrary, they were all SO full of happiness and joy in playing that they were jumping and moving around as they felt the music together. It was thinking about the love I shared with them for music that moved me to tears- how we share something so deeply in common, and yet we come from such different lives, and how I wanted so desperately for them to have the education and safety and opportunity- not wealth or material things, but the fundamentals for survival- that I was privileged to be born into. I felt a drive to help these kids that was stronger than anything I’ve felt before in my life. By the end of their performance, I was laughing and smiling- because they were just so happy and into their music, I couldn’t help but be happy with them.

I had a similar experience in the Girl Guide class. The classroom was a small, square room with desks that had been pushed aside to create a dance floor and room for my small group of about 15 girls to pile in to. The group of about 15-20 young girls sang a song that mostly repeated the words “Oh Lord, I’m sorry”, adding in lines like “I was a cheater, I was a sinner” and so on. One girl played a djembe the whole time. She was incredible- a far better player than I am. (I gave her a high five at the end for being so awesome.) During this song, I, again, cried. Music often moves me to tears, but as with the percussionists in the music room, seeing the talent and love for music in these tiny girls had moved me more than just the music itself. It was what the music represented. They sang another, happier song, with a lot of dance and impressive djembe playing. At the end of this song, they suddenly broke from their dance choreography and grabbed a few of us to dance with them. To my complete surprise, as I was standing a little further back in the group, one of the tiniest girls there- who was also one of the best dancers!- ran up to me, grabbed my hands, and pulled me into the center with her. We all danced for a minute or two, and when the djembe player rounded off the song, the little girl- again, to my surprise- threw her arms around my waist and hugged me. We stood like that for another minute or two, then someone took our picture. We posed for another- then all of her friends ran over to get in the picture, too, crowding around the two of us! All the other girls from my group joined in, as well, and we got a big group picture. When the Global LEAD intern that was taking the picture said “Say cheese!”, one of the girls said, “Cheese? Like you eat?” and we all laughed.

Not all of the kids spoke to us, whether it was because they weren’t comfortable with English, or just weren’t comfortable with us, but everyone was smiling and laughing and having fun. It was an indescribably special experience, sharing the music and happiness with the kids.

I took several videos on my camera while we were there. I wish I could share them, but uploading them to the internet would use up a ton of the bandwidth for our apartment (which would slow everyone else down as well as use up my limited amount of internet bandwidth- and I’d have to pay for more). So that’ll be a nice thing to share on my return, which is less than a month away…

“Though we may come from different places and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one.” –Albus Dumbledore in The Goblet of Fire, the 4^th Harry Potter movie

Part two of this (more thoughts on music) coming soon.
Missing the Athens music scene more than usual today.
-M