Norm Writes
  • Home
  • Who in the World
  • Blog
  • Postcards
  • Why I write

Music lifts children from the slums with the Recycled Orchestra.

3/29/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the impoverished South American country of Paraguay, there is a slum called Cateura outside the capital of Asuncion. This poorest of shantytowns is built on a landfill where the city’s 1,500 tons of garbage and waste is dumped each day.

Despite the filth and the stench and contamination it breeds, about 2,500 families live in Cateura, making their only hand-to-mouth living by sifting through the trash and selling anything that’s recyclable. 24 hours a day there are people going through the most decrepit waste of others, cashing in on 10 cents for a pound of plastic and 5 cents for a pound of cardboard. 
 
The barefoot children don’t go to school, can’t read or write, and have no medical care, forced to sift through the trash from a young age, just like their mothers and fathers. There is no hope for escape to a better life in the landfill community, as joining a gang, becoming a criminal, and doing drugs are usually the only other options. The inhabitants don’t usually have electricity or plumbing and their drinking water is dangerously contaminated with pollution. That was the only life they know in Cateura…until the music started.
 
When environmental technician Favio Chavez visited the landfill community years back, he had an idea for a music school to help lift the children out of their wretched conditions. He quickly realized that new instruments or even buying used ones was not an option. "A violin is worth more than a house here," Chavez.

Picture
So instead, to generate instruments for the music school, he turned to a resource they did have in abundance – trash. Why not make the instruments out of all the recycled materials and garbage? So he turned to local trash worker and carpenter Don Colá Gomez for help, asking him to make a violin.

​Though Gomez had never seen one, they started going to the dump together three days a week to scour for things they could use to construct their patchwork instruments; oven trays, oil cans, recycled string, drain pipes, bottle caps, forks, metal scraps, and salvaged pieces of wood.

 
They brought everything back to a cramped workshop at the edge of the dump, where he went to work. Pretty soon, he was producing three violins a week, and then taught himself how to make cellos and guitars, trumpets and saxophones, and finally drums and basses.
 
The instruments were given to the children during free music classes, and thus the Recycled Orchestra was born. The availability of instruments and the new presence of music in their lives inspired the children – and reinvigorated the community – like no one could have imagined.

Picture
Most of the parents in the landfill community had never heard their children play, so they set up a concert at the local church, with banners in the street and local radio stations advertising it. The concert was packed with humble parents swelling with pride, hopes for a better life rising with each musical note.
 
The children kept playing and became quite adept. The amazing story of a children’s orchestra from the poorest of places who played with instruments repurposed from trash spread like wildfire, and soon they were invited to play in the main city, and then to other countries in South America, and now all over the world.

Picture
"People realize that we shouldn't throw away trash carelessly," says a young man nicknamed Bebi as he plays the Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 on an oil can cello.  "Well, we shouldn't throw away people either."
 
Now, a documentary is out called LandfillHarmonic, which follows the story of the children rising from the trash to play beautiful classical music in the finest concert halls of America and Europe.

"My life would be worthless without music," says one girl in pigtails in the documentary.

"My life would be worthless without music," says one girl in pigtails...

Picture
Even before the documentary was released, donations started flowing in from all over the world for the music school and the people of Cateura. Once she heard about the Recycled Orchestra, Paraguay's most famous musician, Berta Rojas, started flying down regularly from her home in Maryland to teach musical classes.

​Of course there are still problems in the trash community. People are still poor and faced with a never-ending scramble for survival. But now, the community feels they are being better respected instead of scorned, called Recyclers instead of just trash workers. They can envision a day when their children don’t have to work in the trash but can go to school, and move away for real jobs and other opportunities for a better life. They have been transformed by the power of music, resurrected by the indomitable hope of the human spirit.


Just listen to Ada Rios, a precocious and smiling little girl when interviewed about playing music:

“When I play the violin I feel like I am somewhere else. I imagine that I'm alone in my own world and forget about everything else around me and I feel transported to a beautiful place. I'm transported to a place that is completely different to where I am now. It has clear skies, open fields and I see lots of green. It's clean with no trash. There is no contamination where we live. It's just me alone playing my violin.”

-Norm  :-)

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed


      Receive a digital postcard from Norm every month:

    Yes, I want a postcard!

    Don't miss Norm's new book,
    The Queens of Dragon Town!

    See More

    Norm Schriever

    Norm Schriever is a best-selling author, expat, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. He travels the globe, telling the stories of the people he finds, and hopes to make the world a little bit better place with his words.   

    Norm is a professional blogger, digital marketer for smart brands around the world,  and writes for the Huffington Post, Hotels.com, and others.

    Check out South of Normal his Amazon.com best-selling book about life as an expat in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.

    Cambodia's School of Hope explores education and empowerment in impoverished Cambodia, with 100% of sales going to that school.

    The Book Marketing Bible provides 99 essential strategies for authors and marketers.

    Pushups in the Prayer Room, is a wild, irreverent memoir about a year backpacking around the world.  

    Follow Norm on Twitter @NormSchriever or email any time to say hi!

    Categories

    All
    Advice For Writers
    Amazon
    American Exceptionalism
    Anthropology
    Asia
    Backpack
    Basketball
    Best Seller Lists
    Blogging
    Book-marketing
    Book Review
    Book Reviews
    Cambodia
    Charity
    Child-poverty
    Cloud 9
    Communications
    Costa Rica
    Crazy-asia
    Culture
    Dumaguete
    Education
    Environment
    Ethics In Writing
    Expatriate
    Favorite Song
    Festivals
    Fraternity
    Funny
    Future
    Geography
    Give A Photo
    Giveaway
    Giving Back
    Health
    Heroes
    History
    Hugo Chavez
    Human Rights
    Humor
    India
    Islands
    Itunes
    Laugh
    Maps
    Marijuana
    Martial Arts
    Memoir
    Music
    Nature
    Nicaragua
    Non Violence
    Non-violence
    Ocean
    One Love
    One-love
    Our World
    Philanthropy
    Philippines
    Population
    Positive
    Positivity
    Postcard
    Poverty
    Pura Vida
    Pushups In The Prayer Room
    Race
    Reviews
    Safety
    San Juan Del Sur
    Science
    Screenplay
    Self Publish
    Siargao
    Social Media
    Southeast-asia
    South Of Normal
    Speech
    Sri Lanka
    Story
    Surf
    Surfing
    Tamarindo
    Thailand
    The Philippines
    The-queens-of-dragon-town
    Tourism
    Travel
    United Nations
    Venezuela
    Work From The Beach
    World Health
    Writers Forum
    Writing
    Writing Forum
    Writing Your First Book

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

Norm Schriever

Email:     hi@NormSchriever.com