Beauty

“There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. Many people will appear to befriend you when you are wealthy, but precious few will do the same when you are poor. If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent. Yet, poverty often brings out the true generosity in others” (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 78).

“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues” (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 84).

I love talking to people and I love reading books because there is so much to learn from others. I get chills when I hear or read something that makes me exclaim to myself, “This is SO TRUE!” I believe that as innovative and unique as we might like to think we each are, we are not so innovative and unique in the sense that people before us have gone through the challenges, thoughts, feelings, and emotions that we go through, and people after us will go through them as well. For example, I don’t go through my struggles with race, gender, and identity issues by myself. There are others who have and will go through the same struggles.

I’m currently reading the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (a beautiful gift from a beautiful friend!), and the two quotes above really struck an accord with me. The second quote about languages is a great explanation to why I love languages so much. One of my life-time goals is to learn every major language! hehe I want to not only travel the world, but I also want to be able to communicate with and understand the people I meet.

In reference to the first quote about poverty, there is much poverty in this area, which results in much theft, assault, sexual abuse, drug abuse, depression, divorce, adultery, teenage pregnancy, infectious disease… the list goes on. But, there is also great beauty. Lidia, one of the ladies at the clinic where I work, invited me over to her house on Wednesday (10/19/05) to accompany her on her “piano” while she sang. I was so excited to hear she had a piano! I eagerly accepted the invitation and anxiously waited for the visit. When I got to her house, I was disappointed when she pulled out a small, electronic keyboard. Then, when she brought out the songs she wanted me to accompany her on, I was again disappointed to see that they were not sheets of music, but just the text with a couple guitar chords above the words. Then, when she started singing the melody, I realized I couldn’t accompany her with the chords that were provided because she was singing in a totally different key. (She was used to just singing on her own, without instrumental accompaniment and without a starting pitch.) I tried to transpose the chords quickly in my head, but she also didn’t stick to one key or one time signature so it was difficult for me to follow along. “What a disaster,” I thought to myself. The thing is, Lidia had no idea of the musical awkwardness of the situation because she has had no formal musical training. She was just overjoyed to have an accompanist! She hugged me repeatedly and smiled relentlessly. I couldn’t help but smile, too.

The next evening, Lidia invited me over again, this time for a “reunion”. I didn’t really know what this reunion was all about, but I decided to go (never say no to an opportunity to experience life!). The reunion turned out to be an informal fellowship to sing, pray, read the Bible, and eat. Lidia wanted me to play the piano again, but I, thinking of the day before, declined. I wanted to practice some more with just Lidia and hopefully teach her a bit of musical stuff like pitch and rhythm before playing in front of a crowd. One of the men in attendance played the guitar so he was available to provide the accompaniment. As I watched him repeatedly switch from one key to another, and from one key signature to another (often one key or one beat behind the singers), I felt inadequate. My almost 18 years of strict, formal, classical training was acting as a barrier to this sort of awkward, yet somehow beautiful, music-making. People were singing off-key, but they were singing loudly and proudly (and all from memory – there was no music to go around), clapping along to keep some sort of a beat. I felt ashamed at the snob I had become. Classical music has often been criticized for being elitest... That night, I had no argument for this criticism.

The point I am trying to make is that in the midst of poverty, Lidia and her friends have very little education and no opportunity to indulge in such things as music lessons. Yet, they come together every week to give thanks for what they do have. They are not ashamed or embarrassed. They are grateful to be alive and to have each other.

Lidia lost her husband about six years ago. He was murdered while being robbed. She was left alone with three kids. Her kids will not get a good education (the education system here is horrible – I’ll talk more about it later), and they will probably never get the opportunity to move out of this area. But, Lidia has a great heart, and to the people here, that is much more important than having a college degree or being able to play a Beethoven sonata.