Thursday, July 29, 2010

Yalla, On y va

Originally posted on www.aimeefullman.com on July 18 at 2:50 pm local time from Damascus, Syria because blogspot is blocked in Syria. 

"Yalla, on y va!" Dr. Gene, I and our Syrian cab drive were feeling optomistic and festive yelling "yalla" followed by the French "let's go! as we prepared to cross by taxi the Lebanese-Syrian border on the road to Damascus.

For Dr. Gene (legendary doctor of jazz in case you were wondering) and myself, it was our second try to cross the border in 36 hours. When we first arrived at the border after carefully selecting our then Lebanese cab driver under a very sketchy highway bridge based on the perceived quality of his car and his willingness to take our rate of no more than $100, we were denied. Well--Dr. Gene's multi-entry visa obtained via mail via the consul in Houston was denied due to a technicality (no end date). My beautiful spanking-new, obtained in 20 minutes by an old-school gentleman in Washington, DC, visa had been approved in about 2 minutes which left us with a dilemma. After several calls to our Arabic-fluent project managers in both Syria and Lebanon at about 4 am, and some kindly negotiating by our taxi man, it was determined that I would have to cross the border alone to get my exit stamp and pay the required 500 exit fee in Syrian currency and then pick up Dr. Gene again on the way back.

If my mother was alive, there was no way she could have slept well for at least a week ever thinking her daughter, who according to the natives doesn't look a day over 25, (although they are still worried that I might be in danger of missing the marriage bus-I told my Kurdish assistant I was still waiting for the limo) could ever be entering a nation infamously described as part of the axis of terror alone in the middle of the night with a strange taxi driver. But on we went over the border. Dr. Gene had done his best to coax pig latin from my tired brain to comment on how the driver was so lowsay compared to the dare deviled driving we were expecting as we left Beirut. But at this moment, my slow -driving, heavy-smoking driver held my safe passage in his hands and he was looking mighty wonderful.

I made it back to Lebanon only to have to run back and forth between the two administrative offices on that side of the border and here our driver proved invaluable. He pushed and prodded to get us the entry stamps we needed without another visa. When you arrive via air you don't need a visa but at the border with car you do-go figure. After an hour of navigating the now very busy border bureaucracy with everyone now knowing our bidness, we were back in Beirut in time to get a teeny bit of sleep and some important applications out the door and try again.

After stopping at the little cafe on the way where our new driver made us try some of the local specialities including an olive with the hottest, spiciest garlic I have ever tasted (no vampires in Syria clearly) we were on our way again. We shot the no man's land between Lebanon and Syria this time with the windows open and it felt like we were flying through the rugged beauty. With some attention to the saxophone and printer at customs, we made it into Syria in time for the sunset.

The road to Damascus in the 21st Century can be a bit tricky but overall beautiful. We were greated with real welcome both times and our drivers could not have been more thoughtful or trustworthy-with a proven willingness to go to bat for perfect strangers. Even at the most difficult part of our crossing we were never yelled at or treatly unkindly in any way. I am ashamed to say it probably would have been much much different back in the States. And in fact, it was hinted that part of the wait to get visas for some of our team was due to some retaliation for similar treatment.

All in all, a nice adventure and one I would not have wanted to share with anyone else from our team. So my recommendation.....if you plan to shoot the Lebanese border on the road to Damascus, get your visa in person in DC, find a groovy jazz man as your traveling companion,  get a good driver, a Syrian car and cross your fingers that the border crossing back home goes smoothly (with Iraq, Syria and Lebanese stamps on my passport, bets are now open for how long the entry interview back in the States will take.)


PHOTO: Dr. Gene and I happy to be eating good food in Damascus and talking about jazz with Amr our project manager after our successful border crossing!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Beauty Out of Chaos: The Story of American Voices

“A 1, a 2, a 123”, and suddenly the air is filled with fused American and Kurdistani jazz almost hotter than the 125°F temperatures outside Peshawa Hall in Erbil, Iraq. Over the next three hours, representatives from the Cultural Ministry of Kurdistan, the U.S. Embassy Regional Reconstruction Team, Pepsi, and other local sponsors, along with the parents and friends of over 250 youth and young adults aged 7-27, will experience the artistic fruits of two weeks of training at the Youth Excellence on Stage (YES) Academy.

This program, brought you to by American Voices, is just the latest initiative in a 16-year history of bringing concerts, workshops, master classes and interactive performance projects to over 200,000 live audience members in 110 countries on five continents. Under the direction of John Ferguson, our Jazz Bridges, Broadway, Hiplomacy and Yes Academy nonprofit programs aim to further accessibility and the understanding of American performing arts and culture including Broadway, Jazz, and Hip Hop, children’s theater and classical orchestra, classical voice, and piano instruction. In 2007, American Voices launched the YES Academies to inspire and motivate youth artistically and personally in areas of the world lacking opportunities for cultural exchange and dialogue with the U.S. Perhaps most importantly, we further strive to build bridges of mutual understanding among our participants of both gender, especially in nations where youth are separated by religious, ethnic, linguistic and political divides.

Each day in the field, as American teachers and volunteers, we confront our own challenges and uncertainties and dig deep for the patience it requires to facilitate multi-lingual, cross-cultural collaboration with students representing a broad spectrum of ability and training. Motivated by our own personal reasons, we fight injustice by navigating the underlying chaos of conflict, bureaucracy, limited resources, graft, substandard facilities and equipment and grueling travel schedules to create continued opportunities for our most talented students here and back in the States. But it is our student’s stories that haunt us and our sacrifices seem small in comparison with the real risks our students take to pursue something they love. Our students from Mosul are not allowed to be photographed or filmed because if news about their involvement in the arts were made public, their lives and that of their families would be in danger. In 2008, our teachers discovered that the most talented ballerina from Iraq’s Camp Unity, a child of 10, had been killed along with her entire family in Baghdad by extreme religious conservatives when a neighbor reported that she was involved in dance; for such stories, I find there are no words.

YES Academies have been conducted worldwide in languages including Kurdistani, Arabic, Urdu, Thai, French and English. Our students may speak different tongues but the language of beauty and creativity is shared and during the magic of the performance we are all on the same page buoyed by our new friendships and changed forever in ways we can only begin to imagine. In my second year as a member of this merry band of teachers and volunteers, I am amazed each time at each of the many tiny personal, organizational and artistic successes. This year our street dancers, many of whom have never taken a formal class and who have long standing rivalries, explored and then collaborated to teach their original choreography together. In another class, a pianist who moved us with his expressive rendition of a Chopin composition couldn’t explain how he had progressed from almost square one last year with limited access to a piano.

If I were a betting woman, I would put my money on the drive and passion that comes from not taking these opportunities for granted. Long term human development challenges like poverty can take generations to alleviate. But human expression through music, dance, poetry and theater, and the possibilities they allow for cultural and individual liberty, allows us joy and comfort along the way no matter our personal circumstances. Our students are so hungry for the knowledge that is otherwise not available and this is a place where my beaten up beginner oboe method book and a new reed are received like long-lost treasure to be used in isolation with newly learned skills until we return. American Voices also helps to facilitate donations of scores and instruments and on any given day our teachers can be found fixing a saxophone or violin.

At the close of this year’s first Academy of Summer 2010, as we rested from the spontaneous folk dancing that celebrated our shared experience, they implored us, in a common refrain, to return. We come each year, not to change the over 3,200 friends and collaborators we have made in Afghanistan, Belarus, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Nepal, Pakistan, Syria and Thailand even as we are deeply altered ourselves, but only to offer opportunities through the arts by providing the skills and training they crave to make their own way in the world. American Voices and countless other cultural organizations in the field whose bread and butter is cultural exchange aren’t just feeding the soul. These programs train the next generation of cultural leaders often leading to income through teaching jobs and continuity through the development of new training schools. Measuring our impact is not always possible numerically but seeing the reflected joy on their faces and sharing the music of our hearts, despite all the chaos, danger and uncertainty, is a profoundly beautiful thing.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

The Newbie

The Newbie

This year, I am no longer the “new worker bee”. The team here in Kurdistan is comprised of many American Voices veterans-John, Miss Carole, Marc, Dr. Gene the jazz doctor, and of course Mr. Michael. This year in Kurdistan, we have two additional string teachers, a Spanish jazz teacher and a pianist for a total of 7 core disciplines. The first days in the field are always the roughest but particularly so for the newbies who have no real idea what to expect. We all have to take a page from the military practice of hurry up and wait. Translation difficulties, not knowing what to expect, a schedule that is constantly changing, almost having to clean the toilets ourselves, no shows, kids having to be turned away because we are over capacity, half the students leaving their instruments at home, leaking roofs in the middle of auditions, not having a working printer, losing students a half an hour early to the World Cup games—any of these things can be enough to push anyone, much less a jet lagged newcomer to Iraq, over the edge. But the team remained calm and functional yesterday as we all walked the tightrope together today knowing that tomorrow things will start settling in. I can already hear the strings making beautiful music through the office door so we are already well on our way now on Day 2.

Last night, I had a few quiet moments as I was watching football aka soccor in the hotel lobby after dinner (sad for Brazil) to think about how normal the moment was and how strange it feels to not be the newbie this year. As John and I were chatting, Bruce came bounding into the lobby with his cello and a handful of method books. Bruce is probably 6 foot 6 inches of African American positive pep and in comparison makes my enthusiastic self look like Darth Vader. Feeling hungry, we strolled out at about 11 pm to the neighborhood store right next door for some Muesli and ice cream. On the way back, we followed our ears to a Kurdistani wedding just down the block. The fourth wall was open to the sidewalk and so hearing the music we went by to peek in. Bruce got pulled in right away and after a few half hearted protests, my half-eaten ice cream cone was thrown literally out the window by the host and we were “forced” to start dancing with everyone. Believe me, a Western white woman and a very, very tall peppy black man dancing together and with the natives here makes a real statement but we lived it up with everyone for about 20 minutes and then took pictures with the Bride and Groom.

Being invited to participate in one of most important moments in a stranger’s life will always be extraordinary to me, but I have seen it happen more than once as the legendary hospitality of the region and genuine curiosity about us kicks in. Last year, I attended an amazing Palestinian-Swedish Circus Wedding in Southern Lebanon as a guest and again was invited to dance with the guests despite my clear outsider status. Even knowing we were Americans, last night we were very welcome, and in conversations afterwards we explained afterwards that we were here as arts teachers and citizen diplomats rather than with soldiers as they expected. After these moments, I am so aware that sharing this kind of human experience, even as my presence alone slightly pushes social boundaries, is priceless. No matter how many times I find myself in such situations, bonding across cultures always invigorates me allowing me to keep the enthusiasm of a “newbie.” I confess though that falling asleep I wondered what happens to all those photos….hmmm.