For those who don’t know yet, I joined the faculty of the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica which is an El Sistema inspired program. After my experiences in Guatemala and Afghanistan, I could not imagine continuing my music career without being involved in programs dealing with social changes. When I was offered this position, I could not refuse this incredible opportunity.
The National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica (NYOJ) is a non-profit NGO that serves two schools that are situated in challenged communities of Kingston. The first school where NYOJ started to reach out to the communities in need was at STATHS (St Andrew Technical High School) in 2009 and extended their program to KC (Kingston College) two years later.
It has been almost two months that have been here. After the chaos of the start of the semester, things are slowly getting into some kind of routine. I was overwhelmed at first by meeting so many kids. It has been fascinating to see how they have evolved over these past two months. At first a bit reserved with me, little by little, they became more and more comfortable with me and understood that I am here for them.
I am officially an “Auntie Mai!” (that is how the call the teachers and people working for NYOJ) Some of the students that did not show a lot of enthusiasm to learn the violin or get better at playing their instrument started to stay a little bit longer to practice their parts.I noticed that the “trouble” kids changed their nonchalant attitude to help the students that needs help. Some of them even asked to have a copy of the music to practice at home! A few weeks ago, I was very touched by one of the violin student that came to me and told me that without me, he would never had been confident to play a piece he was struggling with. This is the reason why I am here for and why I am doing it. Many of them now wait until the end of the class to ask me for advice or even to show me how well they can play their piece. We are two weeks from our first concert and I am looking forward to listening to them!
It was hard for me to believe that they would be able to play a decent concert when I first arrived. A lot of them were completely lost in their parts and were hiding behind their stands playing a piece that they played last semester. I was facing a few kids that could more or less play and the others could not read their music and even had trouble knowing the name of strings of their own instrument. The discrepancy of the level was shocking. This was the results of many challenges that NYOJ has been dealing with for the past four years. They encountered diverse problems over the years due to yearly tropical storms and some curfews due to the violence in the areas we are working in which stops the program and hinders progress. NYOJ is also struggling with the “essence of the El Sistema” program, which is finding the right balance between the social and the musical mission of the program. Today, we are still dealing with these problems as well as problems with attendance and punctuality. The kids have been used to not coming on time and whenever they want; it is really hard to break these bad habits.
Most of the children we are working with have seen or experienced traumatizing events and live in terrible conditions. You can see that some of them build up a very strong character from living in these ghetto areas but most of them are very nice kids and easy to work with. As I said before, we have succeeded to have a nice core of students that are eager to learn.
Thanks to Avery Waite’s arrangements (the cello teacher) for the diverse ensembles, we now have a fresh new repertoire that the kids have not played before and that is more suited to their different level! The more advanced students can enjoy the lush melodies and the less advance students can still experience the joy of playing in an ensemble playing simpler parts. We started to work with some catchy folk songs and Bob Marley’s songs and introduced them a few weeks ago to the slow movement of the New World symphony by Dvorak. I was very pleased to see their positive and enthusiastic reaction to it and learned it pretty quickly! I have to admit that I had goose bumps when I saw that their body started to move with the music as they became more familiar with the music.
Life in Kingston
I was really amused when NYOJ told me that I would live in the musical neighborhood!I am surrounded by the Wagner, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms Avenues! It is an apartment in a modest home that has a beautiful garden full of exotic trees! We have a breadfruits, ackees, mangos, limes, bananas and probably a lot more that I have not identified yet! It is for sure a very different setting than my last six year in NYC! Life in Kingston is pretty much the same than in any other city. People are very nice and always very helpful.
On my way to work, I am always shocked by the different change of scene between the people living uptown in huge mansions and the people living downtown in the slums. It is very interesting to observe how a lot of uptown people would never venture into the downtown area! While conversing with someone and telling them what I was doing in Jamaica, that person answered that he only knew about these areas by reading the newspaper. The segregation between these two worlds is very sad.
There are some exceptions and some people are willing to help the development of the downtown area, but this will probably take a lot of time to break down these barriers. Before coming here, all I read in tourist books and guide books was to be extremely careful when going downtown. I was quite anxious to know that those dangerous areas would soon be my place of work. It is true that the violence is present. The other day we had to cancel classes due to a fight that took place nearby the our school in which four people died. Even if I do not experience any kind of insecurity once at school, we always have to be aware if tensions increase.
I had the chance to escape Kingston a couple of time to enjoy some of the wonders of Jamaica! This is quite a treat to be able to go hike in the Blue Mountains that offers astonishing views as well as chilling on the Jamaican beaches. This is the first time I have been to beaches where there is very fine, white sand and a stunning blue waters. I have not tested all the wonderful local food yet but the traditional dishes that I have tried so far have been quite delightful!