Moments

Don't you love when you catch yourself in one of those moments?

When you're a kid, these instances seem to be endless. Everything is so new and exciting and magical and well...meaningful. Children become engrossed in everything they do, whether it be playing soccer at the park or learning how to play a new instrument, so much so that their passion and enthusiasm becomes beautifully contagious.

Even though I don't have children of my own (yet), I've spent a lot of time mentoring kids in youth groups and working with students within the public school system, so I've been lucky enough to share some memorable experiences with them. One of my favourite moments was when I had the opportunity of teaching a group of grade 2s a Music unit on percussion instruments. And believe me, it was just as fun as it sounds...

I taught the Music class at an inner-city school in Victoria. Since 70% of the demographic consisted of Aboriginal children, the school had a number of cultural revitalization programs such as a Coast Salish Studies class, First Nations' drumming groups, and a number of social supports in place to ensure the well being of these students. With the dark leagacy of Canada's residential school system marring the lives of many of these students' parents, such measures were integral in providing meaningful education for this new generation of Aborginal youth.

So with all of this in mind, it only made sense that I geared my unit plans towards a First Nations theme.

The beautiful thing about Aboriginal music is that there is such a strong spiritual component to many of the songs. Since many of these nations depend on storytelling to carry on their ancestral legacies, family songs are treated like sacred scrolls that are passed down through the generations. I was also in luck because First Nations music just happens to be very percussion-oriented.

Since my students were very young, I planned my lessons with a very simple progression:

• Lesson 1: The Beat


• Lesson 2: Introduce Percussion Instruments


• Lesson 3: Rhythm


• Lesson 4: Dynamics


• Lesson 5: Combine the Beat, Rhythm, Dynamics


• Lesson 6: Performance

Throughout this whole process, I taught my students only one song called "Gitsigakomim" (pron: git-see-ga-ko-meem), a lovely Cree melody which means honour/love thy mother. Again, this was to keep things simple. Over time, they would layer each of the components learned above, using their percussion instruments.

When I first taught the students the song (sans the instruments), I was almost moved to tears. "Gitsigakomim" carries a very simple yet powerful melody consisting of 1 verse and 1 chorus that are repeated throughout the song. So there I was, standing in the middle of this circle of 8 year-olds, as 30 of these little voices joined in unison to fill the classroom with this melodic chant:

"Gitsigakomim/ He-ey Ya/ Gitsigakomim/ He-ey Ya/ Gitsigakomim/ He-ey Ya/ Git-si-ga-ko-mim/Hey ya, he-ey ya/ Hey ya, he-ey ya..."

And once I started introducing the instruments, I knew these kids were naturals. Their impressive skill level actually caught me off guard since I was able to teach Lessons #2-4 in just two lessons. A pretty crazy feat when you consider the logistics--30 students, 30 sets of very noisy percussion instruments, and 8 year-old attention spans--need I say more? But somehow we just plowed on through since the kids loved to sing, and play the instruments, and hear the fruits of their labour. It was so gratifying for me because I could tell they were really very passionate about making music.

During their final lesson, the students combined all of the elements they had learned into a single performance. As their teacher, aides, principal, and vice principal came together as the audience, the students strutted their musical stuff...

>enter triangles: TING///TING///TING///TING

>>enter hand drums: BOOM/ BOOM/ BOOM/ BOOM

>>>enter rhythm sticks: ti-ti/ ti-ti/ ti-ti/ ti-ti

>>>>enter tambourines: TA-ti-ti-ti / TA-ti-ti-ti/ TA-ti-ti-ti/ TA-ti-ti-ti

>>>>>start singing "Gitsigakomim"

Smiling happy faces sang their little hearts out during that performance. Our voices rose together in that room to achieve that same euphoric energy one feels when watching your favourite band play at an outdoor ampitheatre. Except this time, the kids were the band and the venue was the classroom, where we were sharing our special moment together...

Their Lenses of Hope--"Born into Brothels"

"As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and to the truth as you see it."

--from Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev

Even the most eternal of optimists would have a difficult time finding the silver lining in their lives. They are painfully poor, unwanted, and live under extremely inhumane conditions. Worst of all, they are born without so much of a chance of transcending these grim circumstances.

So who are they?

They are the children of Calcutta's brothels.

Often born into a long line of sex trade workers who were also sold into this desperate lifestyle, these young girls and boys just exist day-by-day, dreaming of the lives they could be living had the stars been aligned in their favour.

Maybe they would go to school and eventually become India's future doctors and lawyers. Maybe they would nurture their creative gifts to the fullest to become the great writers and artists of their time. Maybe they would one day earn enough money to rescue their families from this endless cycle of poverty. Maybe, just maybe....

*******

Zana Briski was a woman with a vision.

After studying Visual Arts and Documentary Photography at both the University of Cambridge and New York's International Centre of Photography, Briski first travelled to India while pursuing a project on female infanticide. A few years later, she would return to the country with yet another trick up her sleeve.

Briski navigated through a world of pimps and drug dealers in order to capture the lives of Sonagachi's sex trade workers in her photography. But as she began to peel back the disturbing layers of Calcutta's red-light district, Briski found a source of both hope and despair in lives even more stigmatized than these brothel workers--their children.

From the time they woke up to the time they fell asleep, these little girls and boys worked. Whether it was making illegal sales for the family's underground liquor business, or playing the house maid where a hard slap and a barrage of drug-induced insults replaced a much-needed hug, these kids were painfully aware of their bleak fates.

And Briski knew she had to help.

While convincing the local boarding school to admit the children of brothel workers seemed like the equivalent of moving a mountain with one's bare hands, Briski decided to start off small. She would first, teach them the art of photography.

She gave these kids the power of sharing their world through their own eyes and this is what they saw:

**(all photos courtesy of Kids with Cameras)**

So Kids with Cameras was born.

Not only did Briski empower these children by encouraging them to learn more about themselves and the world around them, Shanti, Avijit, Gour, Kochi, Manik, Puja, Suchitra, and Tapasi, have started a movement in which children worldwide are being educated about the harsh realities of war, poverty, and sexual slavery through photography. As a result, children from marginalized communities in Cairo, Haiti, and Jerusalem have also contributed their own artistic visions as seen through their lenses of hope.

**If you would like to learn more, please visit the Kids with Cameras website. I would also encourage you to watch Briski's award-winning documentary that started it all, Born into Brothels.

Fumbling Towards Equality

My first experience with racism occurred in elementary school. I was around 8 years-old at the time, and my mom had just dropped me off at the playground before classes started. On my way to the monkey bars, or tire swings, or whatever fit my fancy on that particular day, I heard this grating little voice heckling me from behind. As the voice got closer, I started to get a good look at the chubby kid taunting me, “You’re a n*****!” Honestly, I didn’t really know how to react to this little jerk’s comments. What I should have done, was walk right up to that mini bigot and kick him in the nuts, but alas, hindsight’s only 20/20. I knew he was calling me a really bad name, but I categorized it in the same way a child does for shit, fuck, bitch, etc. So as far as I can recall, the school day carried on like this little occurrence never happened.

That night, I somehow let the whole story slip to my mom. It probably started off like, “Mom, what’s a n*****?” And boy, was she ever PISSED—as in downright LIVID! If I’ve learned one thing in my 26 years on this planet is to watch out when a Filipino mom is angry! Seriously, they are downright scary! Needless to say, we marched right into the principal’s office the very next morning and my mom unleashed the beast. She did such a great job that not only did the little guy get that dreaded phone call home, but I scored an official apology out of the deal. Not a surprise considering I had the world heavyweight mom on my side of the ring.

But I wasn’t going to get off that easily. When I got home from school that day, my mom and I had a little sit-down. And that’s when she basically educated me on how cruel that “N-word” really was—how Black people were once treated like slaves and how that one word symbolized their years of oppression. She obviously gave me the simplified version at the time, minus the lynchings and the rapes and the KKK, but I still got it. But I somehow knew that after learning this dark truth, I would never be the same.

So now, as a Filipina Canadian in her late twenties, that certainly wouldn’t be the last time I’d have to deflect a racial slur. I’ve been called “chink” and “paki” since then, but to me, neither has carried the same weight as the “N-word.” And while I’m obviously not Black, and therefore, truly cannot understand the very magnitude of that word, I am deeply saddened when I think how damaging that experience would be for an 8 year-old Black child. Just to be minding your own business while playing in the playground and then BOOM—some dumb little kid, who probably doesn’t even know what that word means, drops the “N-bomb.” Then what? That dumb little kid gets reprimanded by the school, his/her parents get involved, end of story, right? Unfortunately, the world is a lot more complicated than that.

The bottom line is that hate does not exist in a vacuum. This is pretty obvious. I don’t believe that people are inherently evil and thus become the Hitlers, or Pol Pots, or top Klansmen from birth. It isn’t biology that spreads racism and intolerance, ideologies pursued in ignorance do. And whose minds are the most impressionable of such beliefs? Well our children, of course. We all know that kids are like sponges.

And the problem is obviously not just black or white either. There are Asians who hate Black people, Arabs who hate Asians, White people who hate Aboriginals, and Aboriginals who hate Whites. So what is the reasoning behind such racism? "All Black men are dangerous.” “All Arabs are terrorists.” “All Aboriginals are lazy drunks.” “All White people are racists.” Really sound logic, eh?

But that’s the kind of intolerance that’s easy to see. What about systemic discrimination--the kind of intolerance that often flies below the radar of the PC police? Well, it’s just as insidious. It’s the overrepresentation of Aboriginals in Canadian penitentiaries, while African Americans and Hispanics pack the prisons down South. And it's the disturbing way more than 40 sex trade workers (most of whom being Aboriginal women) went missing from Vancouver's downtown Eastside over the last thirty years--without so much of an RCMP investigation--until only 6 years ago. Like I said, systemic intolerance is insidious.

And while I haven't even touched on the implications regarding religion and borders, this post is already slipping into a state of doom and gloom. So instead, let's see how the glass looks when its half full.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of knowing an amazing youth group, known as Youth Against Racism (YAR), through the Intercultural Association of Victoria. Each of the youth fell between the ages of 12 and 18, and seemed to represent quite the multicultural mosaic which covered the map from China to Haiti to Russia.

YAR's big project during that year was to create their very own documentary. When I say create, these adolescents wrote the script, directed each scene, and starred in the short film aptly entitled, Sifting Through the Layers. And if you haven't already guessed, the film explored the realities of racism as seen through their own experiences.

And was it ever a success! These ambitious youth effectively tackled the complexities of racism and structural discrimination through a powerful commentary that came straight from their hearts. YAR explored the need for cultural visibility in media and pop culture, the distorted racialized messages sent by the beauty industry, and the undeniable power of education. In fact, Sifting Through the Layers has now become a DVD resource package in which teachers and youth workers can facilitate lessons around the subject. Ultimately, this really is a brilliant example of youth empowering other youth.

So as I bring this story to a close, I would like to go off with a bang with the help of Dr. Maya Angelou:

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

--from the last two stanzas of "A Brave and Startling Truth"

Storytelling Our Lives

"Home is where the heart is. My heart is at home." --from "Storytelling Our Lives" project

Last year, I had the pleasure of working on the Intercultural Centre of Victoria's "Storytelling Our Lives" project. It was a community-based program which sought to empower immigrant and refugee women, as well as women of colour, through a series of workshops appealing to a variety of modes of self-expression--theatre, music, dance, and like the name suggests, storytelling. Each of these workshops eventually culminated into a theatrical production of the same name put on by the Puente Theatre.

As you can imagine, participants came from all walks of life and represented various cultures. There were women from Ethiopia, Korea, the Philippines, China, Sweden, Chile, Bangladesh, Mexico, Iran, India, the UK, and of course Aboriginal women from Canada. Even though these women started off as strangers at the beginning of each workshop, they came out as sisters, mothers, and daughters by the end.

The essence of each event could be summed up in one word: powerful. Since I was piecing together a story about the project, I was originally going to sit on the sidelines and watch from afar. But I soon realized that was not an option as I got roped into every single activity--and absolutely loved it! Not only did you get to hear the diverse voices of women often silenced by racism, sexism, and language, cultural, or religious barriers, I had the privilege of listening to their individual songs, while learning to dance their dances.

Most notable of all the activities would have to be both the storytelling and voice workshops. As each woman was encouraged to share a special story from either her family or culture, this lovely First Nations women brought all of us to tears as she candidly took us all along on her spiritual journey. From her tortured childhood within the confines of the residential school system to her current work in building a cultural revitalization program for her band, this amazing women shared how she eventually found her own peace in her nation's special spiritual relationship with the land. It was truly moving.

During the voice workshop, an exuberant vocal coach led the group through a series of exercises that helped the women ease into the idea of singing their lungs out to a bunch of strangers. In the beginning, one would get the sense that most of the group was extremely uncomfortable with the prospect of singing...well...anything. Some participants even decided to sit-out during the first few activities. However, this all changed once the women realized how great they sounded together. Since the first language of most of the women was one other than English, the coach designed an activity to showcase their diversity. As the women were broken into various "language groups," each section was to sing "Home is where the heart is/My heart is at home" in their designated language. Working like dominoes, the first group would start, then subsequent sections would layer each of their songs until the group formed one harmonized voice. As I looked around the room, I realized that we were all sharing a very special moment with one another. And at that melodic climax, I couldn't help but think how strong and beautiful our voices sounded as they resonated together as one.

Beauty in the Breakdown...

" The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? ... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica...I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death." --Pablo Picasso

Man, do I ever wish I had the eye of Mr. Picasso. Only such an artist could capture the sheer chaos and destruction of warfare for those of us so far removed from the madness. While Guernica is Picasso's reaction to the Nazi's aerial raids on Spain's Basque village of the same name, I think the mural is a true testiment to the tragic downfalls of human nature.

But seriously, what do I really know about such pain and suffering? I've led a privileged life in one of the richest nations of the world--the land of the haves. In addition to my unlimited access to food, shelter, water, healthcare, education, malls, Ipods, Wallmarts, and Petceteras, I have never lost my city in aerial attacks, I have never lost a loved one in a roadside bombing, and I have certainly never lost any of my rights so meticulously enshrined in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedom. Needless to say, I've been lucky...VERY VERY lucky.

However, I realize that on the world stage, I am a complete anomaly. Not only have I been reminded of this by my family, whose roots are deeply entrenched in Third World poverty, I had the opportunity of recently crossing paths with a young Congolese women. For the sake of this post, I will call her Tomi, and her story is one of both tragedy and triumph. While growing up in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), she endured years of civil warfare, poverty, and the ubiquitous AIDS pandemic which has waged its own war on her entire continent. She has told me about the DRC's rampant occurrences of rape, the aggressive recruitment of child soldiers, and the overall helpless feelings surrounding such a life in turmoil. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that Tomi is only 24 years-old. But despite growing up in this inexplicable reality, her faith has not been shaken. In search of a better life for both herself and her family, Tomi immigrated to Canada two years ago, and eventually landed a career as a homecare support worker. While she had to leave her family behind, Tomi sends a big cut of her paychecks to her parents in order to help them care for their basic needs back in the DRC. If that isn't enough, Tomi is saving up her hard-earned cash in order to send her younger sister to college once she arrives in the country. This women is truly an inspiration.

In the end, while Guernica serves to remind us of the dark, and even cruel depths of the human condition, the Tomis of the world let us know that sometimes, there can be beauty in the breakdown.

Check out these related links for your interest:

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1307/context/cover/

http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/772.cfm

http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/306/68/