My Castle in Spain

I was 22 years old when I first came to Spain. It was the middle of a 10-week tour with the Antioch College Chorus and my first time in Europe. We had been singing and wine-tasting for a month in Amsterdam, Belgium and France and we had a two-week break in the middle on our own before reuniting in Venice. A student named Lexi said he was going to Spain where a friend of his had a house we could use on an island and the free house, the beach and the chance to use my high-school Spanish for the first time was enough to entice me. So Lexi, Bruce, Susanne and I boarded a train in Southern France to begin the trek to Spain.

And here the adventure began. Europe was everything a 22-year-old hoped for, that romantic pilgrimage primed by books and movies my entire childhood. It was fine sharing it with some 35 other people, but now to be really out on our own was the next rite of passage. At one of the train stops, the boys decided to get off and look for a place to pee (don’t ask me why we didn’t use the train bathroom!) and when we returned, the train had left! With Susanne and all our bags on the train! This long, long before cell phones and texts and such. What to do? We boarded the next train and hoped she would get off at the next station to wait for us. As the train slowed down, we kept our eyes peeled, and sure enough, there she was with 8 bags and a worried look on her face. And then great joy to see us! Ah, youth!

We spent the night at a youth hostel in some town and then decided to split up and hitchhike the rest of the way. Bruce and I made a cardboard sign, “España” and off we went. In fact, I turned 22 on that day, picking blackberries by the side of the road and thumbing our way south. Until the cars stopped stopping for us and we decided to spring for another train ticket. Ended up in a car with another American named Janice whose high school Spanish was at about the same level as mine. The two of us tried to talk with our first Spaniard, Felipe, who took us to the club car to celebrate my birthday. This was 1973 and Franco was still in power, so in our broken Spanish, I remember some discreet talk of politics.

We arrived in Barcelona at midnight and Bruce, Janice and I roamed the streets looking for a pension. Everywhere we knocked, the answer was “completo”—no room at the Inn. I started improvising a calypso song “Completo, complete, todo está completo…” to lighten our mood, but by 1 am, we were getting a bit desparate. Someone noticed our plight and motioned for us to follow. We left Las Ramblas for one of the twisty side streets and arrived at a small hotel that had small windowless rooms. Some 25 years later, I looked for that hotel again in Barcelona and discovered that it had been a place where rooms were rented by the hour by prostitutes!

The next day, Bruce, Janice and I set out to see if Susanne and Lexi arrived and went to the agreed-upon-before-cell-phones-site of the American Express office. And lo and behold, it worked! Off we went to the market, teeming with activity and filled with artfully arranged piles of fruit and nuts and vegetables and such, bought enough for a picnic lunch and found our way to the top of the small mountain Tibidabo. There we feasted on cheese and bread and figs and fruit and wine in a little park, sitting on top of the world so happy and content, five young adventurers in love with life. There was a little amusement park nearby and I remember going on the bumper cars like we were little kids again.

We descended and bought tickets for the island of Formentera, part of the island chain that includes the larger and more well-known Mallorca. Janice was almost persuaded to join us, but decided to go ahead with her original plan.  It could have been my “Before Sunrise” moment with her, but I was inexperienced in such things and the Fates had other plans. She saw us off at the boat, where we took part in a ritual farewell of tossing down a roll of toilet paper to someone below, who held it to complete the connection. An older woman picked up mine and the game was to keep the thread unbroken as long as possible when the boat started to move. Not a game for ecology buffs, but a memorable and festive ceremonial moment as those embarking on a voyage and those staying back where connected with criss-crossing rolls of paper. Mine finally broke and off I went on my first little sea voyage, with all the romance that implied.

I seem to remember Bruce drinking too much and getting seasick in our tiny room, which was anything but romantic. But I stood on the deck under the canopy of stars and was thoroughly enchanted by the wonder of it all. I think Chopin was playing in the distance to complete the picture and in that moment, I couldn’t have imagined anywhere else I would rather have been.

Upon landing in Formentera, a rather desert-like island with few towns and some scattered German tourists, we set off to find Pepe’s bar, where the key to Lexi’s friend’s house theoretically was. We found Young Pepe and tried to explain things in our broken Spanish, but the gist of it was that he didn’t know what the heck we were talking about. Now what? There were a few hours of back and forth and finally we went to Pepe’s father’s house and Lexi managed to say something that rang a bell and the elder Pepe returned with a key.

And so we stayed some four days in a simple small house with no electricity, walking down the path to buy a few local groceries, exploring the island on foot and by bicycle (including a trip to the lighthouse which you can see in the movie Sex and Lucia which was filmed there). I remember a nude swim in the Mediterranean by moon-light, doing yoga accompanied by early morning roosters, late-night card games around candlelight. And my missed moment with Janice grew into a found moment with Susanne. Ah, youth!

It was an auspicious introduction to Spain, a place I returned to again in 1990 and then again almost every year these past 26 years. As mostly vegetarian, the food doesn’t call me, I’m not a fan of bullfights and there is a pretty brutal history (though no more so than England’s or U.S.A.’s) to deal with. But there is a reason that three jazz songs (Back In your Own Backyard; My Romance; Far Away Places) invoked “castles in Spain” as the symbol of romance and adventure and the good life. There is a vibrant musical culture here and the social intelligence of kissing strangers hello and three-hour meals in outdoor restaurants with children still running around the Plaza at midnight is something to both enjoy and admire. Not to mention gazpacho, pimientos de padrón, papas bravas, calamari and clara beer.

And now I’m back in Spain teaching at the Escorial outside of Madrid. 43 years since I landed in Formentera and yes, that sweet bird of youth has flown away and I feel the lion’s paw of devouring time scraping the ground more than I’d like to admit. But it’s a joy of another sorts to teach three classes today and within minutes, awaken warmth and laughter and spirited music in strangers who quickly become familiar. As much as I miss the excitement of the yet-to-be, I also appreciate the contentment of the learned-that, especially a “that” that still brings another kind of surprise and mystery into the classes I’m fortunate enough to teach. In short, my “castle in Spain” is wherever I get to teach.

And sometimes it’s in a castle in Spain.

Gone from Ghana

Arrived at the Accra Airport at 3:30 am and was serenaded by the tune Alfie playing in the background—without an accompanying bell pattern! (Inside Ghana joke). A bit of a cognitive dissonance. Perhaps every Ghanaian has known the common human experience of at least once asking “What’s it all about?” but I suspect that a culture of inclusion where everyone feels like they belong somewhere short-circuits much of that Western existential angst.

Off I went on the first leg of the two flights to Madrid. It felt exotic to land in Casablanca and cross the Sahara by plane, but truth be told, it wasn’t much of a big deal by air. Now in Madrid, a familiar home where I’ve been absent some three years. Hoping the Spanish language that has been sleeping in me will wake up and allow me both to teach and converse. Vamos a ver.

But in my ritual way, a final farewell to Ghana. Goodbye to:

• Happy, smiling cleaning ladies who danced on the edge of our daily music classes.

• The sound of drums and xylophones throughout the day.

• The constant invitation to the bent elbows dance.

• Malta tonic drink, Alvaro pineapple soda, Star and Club beer.

• Fresh coconut juice cut with a machete on the spot.

• Jolof rice, banku, okra.

• Black plastic bags littering the landscape. (Ghana, you need some help with this!)

• Cold showers.

• Women carrying things on their heads, babies strapped to the back.

• Bad and loud TV shows while checking e-mail in the business office.

• One of the most sophisticated, community-based, complex, energetic, varied musical traditions in the world, alive and well and thriving.

• Kids everywhere and no sign of teenage angst or attitude or sullen looks. All ages fluidly mixing and not isolated into preschools, middle schools, old age homes and the like.

• Adults who actually live “it takes a village to raise a child” instead of just mouth a catchy slogan.

And now back in the world of Starbucks and salads and skyscrapers, all familiar and all (mostly) equally welcome. Onward!

Four Bridges to Beauty and Sorrow

A powerful ending to the two weeks. Began with a review for the cameras by Kofi and his assistant teacher Oliver, time to pack, and then the Nunya kids came. James and I gave them a first class on the gyil xylophone, Sofia taught them some notation through games and then I led the Jumpin’ at the Woodside piece as described in yesterday’s blog. A farewell dinner with banku, jolof rice, chicken, mango and pineapple, and a treat of fried plantain complete with some spontaneous dancing with the cleaning women, talking with them about their families, hugging them goodbye. (That an entry in itself—can you imagine playing drums for the cleaners of the Holiday Inn and them dancing while changing the sheets? Only in Africa!)

Then we gathered for a closing session seated in the circle. Time for reflection. People turned to a partner and shared the highlights and new insights from the trip. We opened up a bit of time for some to share with the whole group and then each of the teachers got to speak. My turn was supposed to be reading my blog “The Happiness of Children” and I did get to do that, but first felt the need to share a more personal reflection. And it went something like this:

There are four people in my lifetime who walked me across a bridge to a new world, one filled with bottomless treasures mixed with great pain and sorrow. I felt each of these black folks here with my on this trip. The sense of their presence was palpable and my longing to have them physically with me was equally strong.

The first was Bill “Lump” Blackshear, my 8^th grade basketball buddy who walked me across the tracks to the black neighborhood in my home town of Roselle, New Jersey back in the early 60’s. We went to each other’s houses, played ball, had a great time trying to out-insult the other. We had one year of hanging out before I went to another school and mostly lost contact with him until some 40 years later when we found each other on the Internet. We started to correspond and every person I asked about of our mutual African-American friends was a casualty of sorts—homeless, drug problems, been murdered, murdered someone. Lump was a survivor, but the stories of his companions were brutal, victims of the sickness of American racism. I met Lump in New Jersey back around 2002. I had my daughters with me and the first thing he said to them was, “You young ladies are gorgeous. You’re so lucky you didn’t take after your father!” We were back at it in a second!

Then came Avon Gillespie, my first Orff teacher who opened the door to my life that was to come. At the same time the Orff welcome mat was laid down, he also opened the door to another room in the house, the material from the Georgia Sea Islands. Here my voice started to crack as it so often does when I speak of Avon, telling the folks about his too-early demise from Aids at 51 years old and the many times I had wished he had lived to see what a remarkable baobob tree had sprung from the seeds he planted back in 1973. I could imagine him on this trip complaining a bit about the food or mosquitoes, but feeling more home in the dancing ring than he ever had before.

The next big influence, not counting the royal lineage of distant jazz musicians who mentored me into a world of Soul and Spirit, was the man sitting by my side, Kofi Gbolonyo. I am always uplifted and affirmed and delighted by every minute I’ve had the good fortunate to be in his company. On this trip more than ever before, I have been in awe of the bottomless well not only of his knowledge about the world—ranging from profound ethno-musicological insights to the history of much of Africa to how to make palm wine—but also the depth of his musicianship. This morning when Kofi danced, sang and played all the drum parts for our video cameras, I saw the full measure of his mastery, energy and spirit come forth in a way it never has giving Orff-Afrique workshops for the general public.

And the last was not just one person, but my two grandchildren Zadie and Malik Taylor as well as their father and step-brother, Ronnie and Alijah Taylor. Today is Malik’s 1^st birthday and while sad to miss him smearing the obligatory cake and ice cream on his face, there’s something profound about me being in Africa on this day (and then Spain later the same day). I know some day someone is going to call Zadie or Malik a name and they will have to open the book to that sad, sad story of what it means to be black in America. I wish I could protect them from it, I wish they would never have to know the story of Emmett Till or the Birmingham bombing or Eric Garner or their dad’s own long list of stories, wish that the thought would never have to come up that their skin color is a problem to be solved.

Knowing that can’t be, the next best thing is to wish that they come to Ghana someday and not only feel skin color as a non-issue, but open to the full glory of their African inheritance, feel the full welcome of coming home to an essential part of themselves, feel the full pride that doesn’t come from a defensive slogan, but simply from the extraordinary spiritual blessings of a culture that has survived through its own colonial traumas and emerged with the Spirit intact.

Invoking Lump and Avon and Kofi and Zadie, Malik, Ronnie and Alijah, inviting them into the circle and imagining them holding hands together—well, that was a fine way to end this odyssey. Soon I will return to that land of sorrow where a black person who peacefully shows up at a Presidential candidate’s rally gets punched in the mouth just for being there and neither the assailant nor the candidate (who entices his followers to do more of the same) is held accountable. But in the face of that horror, I have the vision of these kids and the cleaning women and the grandmothers dancing, singing, playing, welcoming us with such warmth, generosity and joy. That counts for something.

9 bows to Ghana and I will be back. Hopefully with the Taylor family.

Jumpin' in Dzodze

People my age are talking about their bucket list, but mine isn’t the Pyramids or Galapagos or the Casbah (though truth be told, I haven’t seen any of those and would be interested). One of them I didn’t even know about until the opportunity came up today was to teach a Big Band Jazz Tune and the Lindy Hop to Ghanaian kids from 6 years old to 21. That’s what I did today and it was ten thousand times more remarkable then seeing some ancient mummies entombed.

I started with singing the parts, then going through some basic Lindy Hop steps, then playing piano (keyboard) for them to dance with a partner and then inviting the brass players to find all the parts on their instruments. I always say as an Orff teacher that the deep tissue work of this process is to connect the ear, the voice and the hand and then the budding young musician is not just learning technique on a particular instrument in a particular style, but singing what they hear, hearing what they sing, playing what they hear and sing—on any instrument. Once they’re oriented with minimal technique and an idea of how to produce a scale, off they go.

And off they went indeed! Trumpets and trombones found the parts quickly, I directed from the piano, my friend Jim Owen worked with a circle of drummers on trap set and congas, the dancers came up close to the instruments and off we went. The joint was jumpin’! Count Basie would have been proud. A fitting end to a most extraordinary two weeks, with only dinner, a closing session and an all-night bus ride ahead.  I’ll probably be in Spain when I resume the storyline, still smiling from the echoes of the miracles I’ve witnessed here, with the bounce of the Lindy Hop still with me.

Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this.

The Happiness of Children

It’s July. The only wholly school-free month and the chance to dive deeper into Summer.

For me, it starts here on the last day of Orff-Afrique in Ghana and will end on the first day of  the International Orff Course at Hidden Valley in Carmel, California. Bookends to more Orff courses in Spain, Salzburg and San Francisco, with real vacation in Sicily. (Note the S theme here.)

Remembering my opening blog about luggage, I’m thinking about some related closing remarks to the group. Something like this:

“We all came here with our own baggage and what we brought was the lens through which we saw everything here. If we did our job and kept our suitcases open, we should go back with more new things that simply the new shirts and dresses the tailor made, the adinkra stamps and kente cloth and drums and bells. Of course, we will carry back with us new songs, drum and xylophone and flute pieces, the new dances and games that we will share with the students we teach. We will have new friendships with both fellow students and the many Ghanaians of all ages we met and spent time with.  We will carry back the stories of the snake and the long lunch and the magic show and the stiltwalkers and the marketplace shopping trip and so on.

But I hope that the most valuable thing we carry in our suitcases back that the Customs inspectors will never see is new insight into culture, education, children’s abilities, human community, more light brought into our dark ignorance about Africa and our narrow view of what children can accomplish, more understanding about what they need to be happy and what they need to be alert, responsive, curious, intelligent, eager to learn. Maybe finally we will realize it’s not computers, it’s not making sure their every whim and fancy is given freely to them. Having seen children here with far fewer material goods, but far greater smiles and laughter and extraordinary (to us) abilities in music and dance, with both warmth and openness with us foreign adults and respect for their elders, we might re-consider what we are expecting of our children and what we do to them when we shove them off into a corner with their video when we take them to the concert or Orff workshop. The children here are so thoroughly children, playing freely outdoors the way children are meant to while also understanding (as one of the speakers at the Nunya Academy Festival told them) the three rules of success as an emerging adult: 1) Discipline 2) Discipline  3) Discipline.

Having seen what we have seen and heard what we have heard and experienced what we experienced, we now have a responsibility to take these first-hand stories back to our respective countries and shed a little light on the world’s dark ignorance of Africa. I hope we balance the stories about the disappearing credits at the bar and the slow Internet and the air-conditioning that didn’t work with the extraordinary beauty and energy and spirit and warmth and generosity we have witnessed in so many of the people here, the non-stop invitations to the dance, the open-hearted welcomes, the gifts that a culture committed to music and dance every day and for all has to offer the world.

When people talk about the poor starving children in Africa, show them the photos of the kids you have met and tell them their names. When they talk about war and revolutions and danger in Africa, tell them how safe you felt here while hearing the news about Orlando or Istanbul. When they ask what famous sites you saw, tell them about 7-year old Selom dancing ten complex dances with such energy, joy and intelligence. Tell them about a sight more wondrous than any site, more inspiring than the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Notre Dame combined. Tell them about the happiness of children. “