Tools in my Box

Another year has swirled by. It moved so fast and yet so many moments remain frozen in the refrigerator of my memory. There was the day I rolled up my sleeves to the toughest semester of my life which included among other activities, a graduate course at Umass on African popular music; piano, voice, and guitar lessons; and chairmanship of an acapella group. Then there was the day I danced for five hours straight in preparation for the West African Drumming ensembles spring performance with guest artist Nani Agbeli of the Dagbe Center in Ghana. The day I watched some of my dearest friends glide down the steps of the amphitheater towards a stage where a ribbon-tied roll of paper signified the triumph of their days here at Mount Holyoke. I won’t deny that I cried after packing them up and sending them off to New York and London. But then I packed my own little suitcase for a return adventure in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Thanks in great part to the students of Mount Holyoke, I was able to raise approximately $3,300 dollars over a matter of days during the month of May; my purposed adventure was to teach and volunteer at Layla House, the orphanage where I worked for a few weeks in the summer of 2009 as part of my Karen Snyder Sullivan travel experience. For two and a half months I taught math, English, American culture, and - my favorite of all - music! I had the opportunity to practice music therapy with a group of emotionally troubled high school age children at Layla.

It came about unexpectedly one unusual afternoon. Classes and chores over for the day, usually a two and half-hour soccer game commences from the end of chore time at 3:30pm until dinner time at 6:00pm. Today, however, several of the older children were away from the compound for health screenings except for one I’ll call Mekonen. In the chilly, gray lull of rainy season, most of the children retreated to their bunkrooms to play cards or read. Relieved to hear their din fade away, I crumpled wearily into a corner of the paved courtyard with my guitar. I strummed and sang a few of songs I had learned by heart during my semester of guitar lessons that spring: Imagine, Let it Be, Hallelujah, and You are my Sunshine. Mekonen meandered along the path that led from the main office, along the courtyard, and into the main square of the compound. He stopped. Arms dangling, he slouched against the wall across from my side of the courtyard and watched me play.

Mekonen had been at Layla over five years now, watching peers come and go; he didn’t care much anymore. I didn’t bother to do more than look up, catch his eye, and nod. Mekonen is not the type of child you invite to join. He prefers to welcome himself at his own pace. For the better part of an hour he leaned against the wall, or shuffled in zigzags across the courtyard as I played. The shuffling eventually brought him close to where I sat. He sat down too. Long fingers started tweaking the tuning pins as I played and soon You are my Sunshine sounded more like a dying owl than a love song. Mekonen held his hands out to play. “Please may I?” he whispered. Cradling the little Luna in his lap, our first lesson began with tuning. Then a D chord. Then a G chord. Then the dinner bell rang. While at tea the next morning I heard another whisper in my ear, “Guitar?” He raised is eyebrows the way I raise mine when asking a question in class.

Over three days he learned B, then F, C, and E, A minor, A...we put them together, made up songs, sang songs we knew, and learned songs from each other. Guitar has a natural way of drawing out conversation, even in a child like Mekonen. Mekonen, familiar with three languages, preferred not to speak very often; he stared instead, but not at you, just out there somewhere. He wasn’t even a sullen boy, just sad. However, while he let his bruised fingers rest in between pinching the guitars strings a few words would come out. One day he told me he liked science and that he wanted to do experiments when he grew up. The next day we talked about football. The conversation would flow, then ebb, and he’d pick up the guitar again.

After just a few days the other children noticed Mekonen’s newfound skill. They wanted to learn to. Soon there were too many students for me to give private lessons so I gathered the group in a circle after dinner and let Mekonen demonstrate. He then turned to Naeti and taught him one chord. Naeti, comfortable with his D chord turned to Shifwhereae and taught him the D chord. Naeti got a little confused. “If you don’t know,” I said, “ask Mekonen. He knows. If he doesn’t remember, he can ask me.”

The rest of that summer, after dinner and dishes, our group collected on the rush matts or in chairs to practice. “Mekonen,” a boy would ask, “can I come tonight to learn?” Mekonen would nod yes, though his mouth didn’t smile - but his eyes smiled. I don’t have a name for what I saw grow in him and some of the other children over the summer as we passed that guitar around. Maybe you could call it hope, or peace, or satisfaction, or acceptance. Whatever you want to call it, Mekonen began to relinquish his sullen air, to speak a little more often of his own accord, to join the football matches and the card games. And every evening he led our lessons.

Now cloaked in the heavy blanket of winter, I look back to the summer and reflect on those little miracles and the miracles of change in my own life. When we arrive as little fresh-faced firsties to this evergreen campus, there is a figurative toolbox waiting for each of us. Over the next four years of class, homework, friendship, and outreach we collect and sharpen tools. But like any five-year-old with a new kit from Santa Claus, we itch to practice with our tools. Sitting through the fourteen-hour flight from Washington to Addis Ababa, one has way too much time to think. Finally on my way, I succumbed to worries that I really was not equipped for this job after all. Yet I proved my own fears of inadequacy wrong day after day after day. You cannot predict what problems or puzzling opportunities will arise or how you will solve them in a place where duct tape holds car doors in place and diapers are tied with twine.

This coming summer, with even more tools for leadership, problem solving, and compassion in my Mount Holyoke toolbox I plan to go to either London or Boston to intern with music and dance therapists before returning to my senior year to write a thesis on those matters. I’m happy to report that my tool collection is not only growing but also improving in quality as I work through hardships and joys in my college career. There can be a lot of both in just one day, but I know I am prepared. Thank you for your part in equipping me and other women to create lasting influence in people outside of Mount Holyoke.