Hasta Luego!

This morning while I played the prelude for church, two young boys stood on tiptoes to peer into the piano to watch the hammers. I'm getting more confident about opening the book to the posted page and starting to play, not at all certain if the hymn is one I've played before until I start playing. Today when I opened the hymnal, I realized the opening hymn was Divina luz, the same hymn Adaly performed for the recital yesterday. Adaly is the young mother who memorized the hymn from the regular hymnal, and added the left hand. I motioned to her to look at the hymn number, and then waved my hand in an invitation for her to come play the piano for the opening song. She smiled, and stood up, and walked across the front of the room towards me as the bishop was announcing I would be playing the piano. I shook my head and pointed at Adaly. He looked surprised, smiled broadly, and announced that Adaly would play.

Just as she prepared to play, I realized she didn't have a hymn book. She shook her head that she didn't need it, but then willingly accepted mine. She played the introduction and all four verses boldly and right on the beat. A couple of times she missed notes, but came right back in again. I was so pleased! I never imagined that in five weeks someone who had never played a piano before could play so well in church for congregational singing! Sitting there, watching and hearing her play was one of the greatest thrills of my life! And to think the first day she left and was walking home when John Mann picked her up and brought her back to the church. I'm grateful that many mornings Megan entertained her little girl so that Adaly could participate in the class.

Now I predict that by Thanksgiving, Adaly will be able to play for the full service every week - if not before. Maybe, now that she has a keyboard to practice on at home, it may happen next week. However, knowing her willingness to help the students, she'll probably encourage the bishop to give the other students opportunities to play, too. Hallelujah! I honestly expected it would be at least three years before anyone would be ready to play for church. I'm also quite certain that Adaly will learn to play hymns with the bass, tenor, and alto notes. I never, ever, expected this to happen! And to think all she had to practice on at home was the two-octave cardboard keyboard we passed out the first week of classes!

It was a Sunday meeting today where individuals in the congregation may go to the podium and share their feelings about God and church. Several of our students, including Adaly; Susi, the bishop's wife; and Yanira, the president of the children's organization spoke about the blessing the piano lessons have been for them. I wish I could have understood everything they said; I was so grateful for their appreciation.

At 2 p.m. today, John Mann drove his van to deliver the keyboards. I never did see any of the homes since John carried the keyboards to the doors. However, I'm guessing it may be a challenge for each family to find a place for "their" keyboard. Adaly informed each family that the keyboards are not to be sold, not to be lent to anyone, are not to leave the houses, are not to be "abused," and are to be returned to me for teaching when I return.

So my bags are packed, and I am ready to come home. But now I feel like Ciudad Vieja is home, too, and I'm certain enough that I will return that I am leaving boxes of teaching supplies and a small bag of clothing and two pairs of shoes so that when I come again I can use the suitcase space for more teaching supplies.

If anyone wants to join me the next time, I have three guarantees:

1. Teaching piano in Ciudad Vieja will be challenging - very challenging. It's the most challenging project I've done in my life.

2. You will love the people. It is impossible not to love them.

3. You will learn something about your strengths and weaknesses.

And fourth, it isn't a guarantee, but I'm guessing once you come you'll want to return.

Have I mentioned that Flores, Guatemala, which is close to Tikal, has a group of teenagers who are hopeful someone will teach there? Flores, by the way, is a beautiful island on a lake with restaurants, shops, hotels with swimming pools and lakeside views . . .

Reflecting - Why Did I Do This?

            The purpose of this project was to volunteer, and to get some of my students to volunteer, to teach piano to people in Guatemala who could not otherwise have lessons so that someone could play the piano for church.

            I can’t say that I was inspired. Perhaps that’s what happened. But the way I remember it, when we were in Antigua, Guatemala for Christmas with Garth and Cheryl Norman, no one was at church the Sunday before Christmas that could play the piano, so my husband volunteered me. When I asked the 16-year-old chorister why she didn’t play, she informed me she’d taken lessons, but the teaching was inadequate to learn to play hymns.

            So spontaneously after the meeting, I asked the only member of the bishopric if I came to Guatemala to teach lessons, would it be a possibility to use the building, and he said absolutely, and please do come.  When I mentioned it to John Mann, who had graciously invited us to stay at his home along with the Normans, he offered his home for us and any student teachers for the duration of our program. He also insisted that if we were going to come, we needed to come for a minimum of three times. He then talked to the bishop in Ciudad Viejas, and said that if I taught in the church there I wouldn’t have to ride the bus back and forth to Antigua.

            In reflection, the concept was a ludicrous idea for me to even attempt, but I didn’t know it. After all, teaching piano is what I do. How difficult could it be to teach beginners?  Several adults assured me that Spanish would not be a challenge since the children and teenagers all learn English in school.  It’s true that some of them do – for about one hour each week.  The reality is I had to teach the students in Spanish; they did not respond to my English, and never spoke English to me.

            A week before we left Texas, John Mann told me was that 15 to 20 students had signed up. Then the day before we left it was “30 or so.” When we went to church the morning after we arrived, I was given an updated list of 48. Some of those never showed up, but the first week we had a total of 90 different people take at least a couple of classes. Three weeks ago we had 50 coming regularly, and only two of those have not continued to the end. I want to mention both of them.

            Adela was the 16-year-old young lady I met in December in Antigua. She was the inspiration behind the project, and so on the first Sunday in Guatemala we went to Antigua to hopefully find her, and we met her mother walking into church. Adela came to classes the first two weeks while it was vacation time for her, but then she could not attend the last three weeks because of her school schedule. Her family sent me red roses as a thank-you. (I passed them out to women on my walk home that day.)

             Adela introduced me to Pablo, who lives with her family. He is eighteen, and has the sunniest disposition of any young man I’ve ever met. His story is not uncommon. He parents divorced and moved to the United States when he was fourteen. He was too young for a work visa, so he “stayed” in Guatemala, the Adela’s family invited him to live with them.

            Pablo came to the piano classes as often as he could, often staying for a couple of classes to help other students, and frequently helped us take down keyboards and teaching materials at the end of classes.

            Saul , an intelligent 14-year-old, is the other student who did not continue. Saul came to class the morning of July 15, excited to choose his recital solo. He also planned to play an easy version of Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer. He was the most promising teenage student in all the classes, eager to learn and highly motivated.

One day I thought he was asking for my email, so I gave him a business card. He looked confused, and went to another student, showing the card. She went to the one student who spoke English. Saul didn’t want my email – he was asking to borrow my hymnal. He wanted to play from the regular hymn book, even though he’d only had two weeks of lessons.

            Saul was the student I thought was the most promising to be the first to fulfill my dream of someone to play for church. He also said he could practice at the church because his dad had keys to get in to clean the building.

            But after July 15, Saul never came again. I asked the bishop about him when we met this week, and he said Saul’s family sent him to a farm far away to work to earn money for the family. I asked about school, and was told this is not uncommon. Feeding a family comes before education. I cannot accept that this intelligent, young man will not get any more schooling.

            

Mi Espanol Horrible

My attempt to communicate in Spanish with the students resulted in some hilarious moments.

            The last class each day was a group of ten students ages nine to twelve years. These students were cousins and friends, so they loved being together, but they were also eager to learn piano. I thought they were overly sober for children, and had begun to wonder if some of them ever laughed. I tried to  have time each day for  them to practice with earphones, and I would listen to a few individually.  Each reacted with a big smile when I praised their efforts, but then the smiles dissolved and they were serious again. So I was truly surprised when they were taking a written theory examination, and I made a request that I always make of my Texas students: “Keep your eyes on your own papers, please!”  Except I mixed up my verbs and actually said, “”Put your eyes on your own papers, please!”  Instantly, they all burst into laughter, and they couldn’t stop. They weren’t being disrespectful; they'd just never received such an instruction before.

Here’s the class with the addition of a younger student and an older student in their group recital picture.

            Then on the last day of the morning adult class, within half an hour I made three flubs. First, I was trying to give John Mann’s salaried helper, Jorge, who was also in the class, instructions on where to find the new hymn books John had bought for the recitals. I didn’t know the Spanish word for mannequin, so I told him they were on the small table next to the dead woman in John’s house. Of course, that surprised the students. Then Megan suggested we bring the mannequin to the recitals and set her on a chair to hold programs out for guests to take as they entered the room. More laughter. I don’t think I’ll forget that the Spanish word for mannequin is the same word with the accent on the last syllable instead of the first.

            Just after that miscommunication, I glanced at Megan’s legs and was shocked to see how her bites had become infected because she keeps scratching them. The class was surprised as well. Then, boasting, I told them I eat lots of garlic, and bugs don’t bite me. I pulled up my skirt to show my legs had no bites. I said, “My blood stinks, so bugs leave me alone. Megan doesn’t eat garlic – her blood is sweet, so the bugs bite her.”

            Then Adaly said it was the same with her little girl, Nicole – that she gets bites every day. So I said, “You need to feed Nicole lots of garlic!,” but what I actually said was, “You need to feed Nicole lots of eyes!” “Ajos” is “garlic,” and “ojos” is “eyes.”

            When Jorge played his recital hymn during our last rehearsal, I announced that his family, including his grandchildren,  were coming to hear him play. The students asked him how many grandchildren he had, and he told them seven. After the compliments, and comments that he must have married really young because he didn’t look old enough to have seven grandchildren, he said, “Let me tell you my story. My mother died when I was eight, and so I did all the cooking for our family. By the time I was 17, I wanted to get married so I could get out of the kitchen.”

            Now understand that he was speaking rapidly, and the word for kitchen is “cocina.” But all the words ran together, and though I was trying to understand, I got lost. I asked, “Is he saying he got married when he was 17 because he got hooked on cocaine?” Honestly, I wasn’t trying to be funny.

This photo is Jorge with his wife, daughters, and grandchildren. 

It was taken outside the church just after his recital.

          

Recital Success!

            We had two recitals on Thursday, and two on Saturday. We survived! And so did the students.  Everyone who was on the programs to perform showed up except one girl who had to finish up some homework at school.  They came!

            However, none of the recitals started on time. And we certainly didn’t have audience members sitting on all the chairs we set up. On Thursday, after our morning class, we set up as many folding chairs as we comfortably could. John Mann had said that the students would come, and they would bring their families, and we would be surprised at how many would come.

            However, our first recital on Thursday was already one big family.  Most of the eight adults were related, and were parents of the ten young children.  At 3:00 p.m., when the program was supposed to start on time, we had a couple of adults and several children. But then they came, dressed in their Sunday clothes.  The youngest, Valentina Garcia, sat on her assigned small folding chair, and sucked on her baby bottle of milk.  We involved the youngsters in clapping rhythms and wiggling finger numbers while the adults played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. The children also sang Twinkle in English, which delighted the audience, and sang three verses of Away in a Manger while the adults performed.

The youngest participants waiting for the recital to begin.

Posing before the recital.

Reading my introductory speech.

Rita is proud of her certificate and card with 35 stickers. 

Megan knew the children would count the stickers, so she made sure each card had 35.

The man in the background to the left is her dad and the bishop.

The students pose after the Thursday 3 p.m. recital.

The very happy lady is Yanira, the Primary President.

Megan posing with the children outside after the program.

            The adults actually played their hymn solos better than they had during rehearsals. In the first recital, Guadalupe, who is a grandfather of most of the children in this group finished his hymn with a big smile and took his bow. Each of his fingers were as wide as the keys, and when we started lessons, it took several days for him to find the muscles to control the fingers individually.

            For each recital, the students had been assigned a different hymn, but on Monday three teenage sisters informed me they needed to perform in the first recital on Thursday. Guadalupe didn’t seem to mind that two of the sisters performed “his” hymn as a duet in the same recital.

Megan points to finger numbers while I play solo to Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

            In each recital, the students performed their chosen hymn alone, then played while the audience sang all the verses. We practiced bows before the recitals, which was something new for all the students.  The group bows were the most difficult to perfect, but at the recitals, the students were obviously proud of their group performances as they stood and bowed together.  I expected the students to do what my Texas students do – to look at their parents before and after their bows. But instead, each student bowed and then with an expectant look turned their heads to look at me. It was easy for me to give each student an encouraging comment and broad smile. Then the students responded with big smiles and looked at their families.

            Megan brought pencils and pencil sharpeners with music symbols as gifts for students. We taped them to colorful motivational cards and Megan presented them to all the students 12 years and younger. I presented every student with a participation certificate. We took group photos after every recital.

            The second recital on Thursday scheduled for 5 p.m. listed eight children ages 8-12, and one 18-year-old young man named Pablo, who really wanted to be in a recital, but couldn’t come any other time. But no one showed up at 5:00 except for several adults who performed in the first recital and stayed to be audience members for the second recital. It started raining. Knowing all the children had walked to their class each day, I wondered if the rain would stop them. Finally, at 5:15 I went outside in the rain to see if they were coming. I looked up the hill, and here came the three Sanchez children, dressed in their Sunday clothes, and clutching their piano books close to keep them dry in the rain.

Someone please email me how to turn these pictures around? They are correct in my files, but go horizontal when I select them for the blog.

     Delwin Sanchez wore a white pair of cotton gloves to keep his hands warm before the performance. I don’t know where he got that idea, but he insisted on practicing with them on, and took them off when I said it was time to begin.

            By 5:30, all of the students except one girl arrived, all smiling and excited. I asked where their parents were, and they told me they were working, but trying to come. So we played our program, and by the time we finished we had an audience. We demonstrated a game to help students learn to hear different intervals using a water spray bottle and an umbrella. We demonstrated how the students could count and clap rhythms, and then we performed the first part of our program again.

Students in our Thursday 5 p.m. recital - except for Gonzales in the front.

He attended classes with the younger children who participated in the Thursday 3 p.m. recital. 

            After this recital, the students asked me to autograph their piano books. This class had decorated the plain covers of their books with colored pencils. The children hugged me repeatedly. No one wanted to leave. I talked to the parents and the students about the importance of practicing every day, and moving forward in their piano books, even if it is challenging. I told them that Adaly has offered to help answer questions, and will be asking them each week if they are practicing.

            Megan played Fur Elise at the end of three of the programs to motivate the students. I told them it was a sample of what they might be able to play in four years if they practice one hour every day.  She did not play Fur Elise at the end of Saturday’s morning program because Jose was performing it as a solo in addition to his hymn.

            I thought if we could get through the two programs on Thursday, Saturday would be easier. It was. But again, no one was on time. Our 11 a.m. recital had several adults riding two buses to get to Ciudad Vieja.  After Jorge dropped us off at the church, he went to pick up his family. However, the late start only bothered me.; I have not adjusted to the Guatemala custom of leaving home for a meeting at the time the meeting is scheduled to begin.

            Our 11 a.m. recital consisted of our morning class, which met for three hours each day instead of 45 minutes like the four afternoon classes. This group even completed the first Four Levels of the Texas Music Teachers Association Theory Tests. They learned all of the major key signatures, and were good sports about playing games to reinforce theory principles.  Because we had more time together, we became better acquainted with each other.

            I was impressed with Jorge who had to leave school after first grade to work. His mother died when he was eight. The piano classes are his first classroom experience of any kind since first grade. When I told the class I had decided that having recitals was not the best plan, that it would have been better to just invite family and friends to the last day of class, Jorge raised his hand and asked to speak. He said he thought it was important that the students have an opportunity to present themselves to their families. He is not familiar with the hymns we learned, but he has worked hard. The end of his second finger is missing after the third joint, , but we joked that it is one less finger to try to curve.  I think of all the students I was most pleased with the progress of Jorge at the recitals on Saturday.

            But then there is Adaly, who memorized a hymn using the “real” hymn book. She asked the first week if she could play Divina luz for her solo hymn, and I told her it was difficult, and recommended she choose a hymn from our lesson book. She said she thought she could learn it – after all, she said, we’d learned the names of all the notes, understood sharps and flats and fingering, and how to count, so why couldn’t she?  The next day she showed up with her pocket-size hymnal with all the notes labeled in all four parts. I thought she’d give up, but at least I had enough compassion to give her my regular-sized hymnal, and to recommend that she learn just the soprano – only the top notes of the right hand. She looked disappointed, and asked if she learned the right hand, could she play the left hand with it.  In the end, on her own, she doubled the soprano line in the left hand, and performed today with the hymn memorized, and no mistakes playing the hymn four times while the audience sang all the verses.

John Mann is reaching in a Guatemalan purse to get Megan's beautiful Jade plaque. 

She is holding the letter he has just read to her.

I also presented her with a bracelet.

       

These are the students in our Saturday, 11:00 a.m. recital.

Our final recital on Saturday was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., but didn’t begin until 1:30 because five of the eight stunts had to ride two buses from Paramos, which takes 50 minutes each way, and the buses were slower because of the rain.  As I listened to Lesly, who is nine years old, and her brother, Jose, who is ten, play their solos perfectly and continue without mistakes while the audience sang the verses, I had big hopes that they will be accompanying their Sunday meetings in a few years.  Paramos has 172 people meeting in a larger building than Ciudad Vieja, and no piano.

These are the students in our Saturday, 1:00 p.m. recital.




Lesley smiles while warming up for the recital.
Yes, I know the tables are two high. John Mann says that can be fixed next time we come.

            John Mann surprised Megan and myself with beautiful engraved jade plaques thanking us for our contribution to the community. Students gave me four beautiful Guatemalan purses and a cake.

            But it was the hugs that meant the most.