Musical Healing

After a late breakfast, we packed up our bags one last time and headed out for our last day "on the road."  We started out at the Sultan II. Beyazid Kulliyesi ve Saglik Muzesi.  This complex, built by the Sultan Beyazid II, was designed to be a teaching hospital.  I didn't know quite what to expect out of a hospital museum.  It turned out to be fascinating for a number of reasons.

The first thing I noticed was the beauty of the surroundings.  All the buildings were of a pale cream stone that glowed in the morning light.  Gardens of roses and lavender scented the cool air.  The only sounds were birdsong, falling water from two fountains, and soft simple music.

The former hospital now has lifesize dummies posed in diorama that depict what day-to-day life was like there during the Ottoman Empire.  I am usually not a fan of mannequins, but these were well-done.  They detailed the types of treatments one could receive at the complex as well as what the various people - patients, physicians, student doctors - had and did.

So many of the things they were doing then are things we've only just now started to experiment with in the West.  Cataract surgery was already being performed in the Middle Ages as were C-section births and other things we didn't adopt until much later.  In a time when most of the people with mental health issues were being locked away and treated like wayward animals, the Ottomans sought a cure and dignity for each.  Why did it take the West so long to catch up to these ideas?

The thing I found most interesting was the concept of musical healing. One of their major forms of treatment for physical and psychological disorders both was exposure to different kinds of music.  At all times, the fountain kept beautiful sound echoing off the in-patient housing wing.  Patients would attend performances of all the different types of music depending on what they needed to help with their specific issues.  See the picture below for a description of what each type did and for whom.

There is a logic to this.  Think about how many times we use music casually to lift ourselves out of a bad mood.  Think about the research done on the possibility for damage or even death caused by excessive exposure to loud, low bass.  We even had the cliche about music soothing the savage soul.  Everything around us seems to be telling us that this is a good idea.  It's just taken us about 400 years to get back to it in our part of the world.

I bought two CDs, one of Rast and one of Rehavi.  The Rast, supposedly good for scholars, is something to try in my classroom.  I personally am going to try the Rehavi next time I get a migraine.  Who knows whether it will work or not?  I have tried everything else under the sun, including some medicines that have made me very, very ill in their own right.  Maybe it's time I took a leaf from the Ottoman Physician Desk Reference and let something I already enjoy become something that can heal me.

Continuing Fascination

Even though I am home now, I am far from putting this trip on a shelf like an interesting artifact, something shiny to look at but with no real meaning or power.  Instead, I find that even though the actual travel has already occurred, the changes from it will continue to ripple through me for a long time to come.

There's the simple act of looking at and sorting through the vast amount of information we gained while we were there about everything education in Brazil.  We were privileged to see it from so many different angles that putting together something that feels cohesive and inclusive is a mammoth task.  We saw education through the eyes of high government officials, local superintendents, classroom teachers at both public and private schools, pre-service teachers in training at one of the best schools in Brazil, students everywhere, and instructors at specialized  places like language schools.  That is a huge box of stories to consider as one sifts through for the best description of the system as a whole.

There is also a desire to fill in all the huge gaps in my knowledge about Brazil.  A book I had bought before I left, The Brazil Reader, is helping to do that in an interesting way, made up as it is of source documents, first hand accounts and unusual perspectives on the history and culture of Brazil.  I wish I had taken the time from somewhere to read it before I went.  I think I would have understood several things better.  Of course, as I've been reading, I have frequently thought, "Okay, I get that bit because I saw (that place or that thing)."  Without being there first, it might not have had as much significance to me.

It's not just non-fiction, though.  I finished Dona Flor and have Gabriela waiting to go as I continue to enjoy Jorge Amado tremendously.  A book suggested by our Brasilia guide, Roberto, called simply Brazil, has a sample chapter on my Kindle to see if it suits my current obsession or not.

I'm also seeking as much music as I can get my hands on.  Pandora, my old standby, has been of some help with this, but I know I'm probably not getting the latest hits.  Instead, I'm trying to get a feel for standards and famous musicians (more than my friend D. already shared).  Certain names turn up over and over again everywhere, so I think that's a good place to start, especially when I start to read the biographies.

And then there's Portuguese itself.  More than before, even, I want to learn it.  I just have to figure out how and with what tools.  When I first got home, even though I had only been out for 14 days, it was still strange to hear English surrounding me.  Usually, I have to be gone a lot longer than that to have that reaction.  There was something about the Portuguese that was familiar, maybe the Spanish similarities.  I don't know.

Trivially, I have even found Guarana on Amazon.com.  On payday (tomorrow, really), I will order some of it to go along with the Ito En green tea I get from them as a "taste treat" from my days in Japan.  It amuses me to no end that I can get the beautiful green and red cans delivered right to my house.  I know people will think I'm nuts for that, but...well...if it makes me happy and it doesn't hurt anybody...right?

It's all sticking with me, then, more even than I had anticipated.  It's a good thing, I think.  I already find myself saying in my head, "Next time, I want to...."  I have to stop and wonder if I will truly get back.  Somehow I think that I will.  I can't imagine it any other way.

Presentations

In many of the schools we visited in Pocos, we were treated to presentations by the students.  The students had apparently been preparing for our arrival for quite some time, and one day at Integral, a private school, we had a third year class of students do PowerPoints, sing, and present.  One of the younger classes had dancers, girls who are taking classes and choreographing their own routines.  We watched some of middle school students learning dances for their Festa Junina.   Because of the rules of the school, I don't have any pictures from there.  They asked us not to shoot pictures, and we were respectful of that.

Later in the week, we went to David Compista, Rita's public school, and her classes gave us a day of presentations including songs, dances including the traditional forms and freestyle, information about Pocos and Brazil through PowerPoint, and in the night session, rap.  It was wonderful to see all the talents the students had to share with us.  Ali and I each filmed and took pictures as much as possible, and I'm still working on getting all the video off my Bloggie and processed.

I want to be able to show my students how much they have in common with the students I met in Brazil.  I think they will particularly love the rap and freestyle dancing although they will undoubtedly find all of it interesting.  To me, it just goes to reinforce the idea that there are beautiful similarities that exist as a baseline for communication between those students and my own.  Too often, I think my kids think of everybody else, and not necessarily just those in another nation or speakers of another language, as people they have no possible connection with.  When they see people playing the guitar with passion or rapping or dancing or whatever it is that they themselves enjoy doing, I hope they are going to have that precious "A-ha!" moment where they begin to see commonality and points of connection instead of barriers.

As soon as I conquer a few cross-account problems, I will get the videos up here.

Mountain Music and Monkeys

(or...yesterday continued)

After we left the vineyard, we bumped along for quite awhile and finally emerged in a tiny town that consisted of many houses, a church, the school, and not a whole lot else.  Everything was clean and tidy, and the school was a lovely shade of lime green.  It was clearly a place that, although it might not have a whole lot, cared for what it did possess.

From the minute we entered the doors of the school in Campestrinho, we were surrounded with people who wanted to speak to us, see us, experience us.  It was amazing.  We went to almost every classroom, looked in, said hi just as we have been doing, but here we saw lower elementary school children.  They were so full of curiosity about us.  They crowded into the doors of the classrooms we weren't watching to see if we were coming to them next.  In every class, there was one brave soul who would try to say something in English.  They were precious.

Quite unexpectedly, we were also treated to an entire performance of a guitar orchestra.  They sang traditional Brazilian folk music and played.  It was wonderful.  They were very talented.  Everywhere we've been, music has greeted us.  It is such a lovely thing to have as a welcome, and it is also great to see students so deeply tied to the arts.

We stayed for awhile, and then we went back to Andradas to visit a large rural/urban school there.  It reminded me so much of my high school for some reason.  Maybe it was the way the kids behaved.  Maybe it was some of the problems they were having.  For whatever reason, it felt homelike to me.

When we finally got back to town, we took a tour to the Fountain of the Lovers.  It  is a famous landmark here in Poços de Caldas, but we were hoping to see the monkeys that live there as much as the lush scenery.    When we arrived, all but one of the monkeys were gone.  The lone little creature sat in his tree and sang to us.  We talked to him, and he deigned to swing down and pose for some pictures (quite literally, pose).  We bought a couple of bananas, and he became much more active.  We learned we could feed him by hand.  He would delicately walk forward and pluck the bits of banana from our outstretched palms, carefully watching us the whole time for signs of trechery.  He was amazing.

Eventually, after two bananas, he decided to share the wealth, and he called for one of his friends or family.  Another came, we bought some more bananas, and we kept on feeding them.  It was a truly fantastic afternoon, like something out of a tourist guide book.  After the monkeys decided they were through with us, we hiked up to see the fountain, and it was lovely.  I will get some pictures processed soon.

We came back down the hill and to our hotel.  It had been a very long and mixed day.  From dirt roads and wine to guitars and metal-roofed schools to monkeys and marble fountains, yesterday had a bit of everything in it.  It was all good.

With a Little Help from My Friend

I have been looking for all sorts of things Brazil to get ready for the upcoming trip, but as always when I'm not studying the place I'm going with a reliable professor, it's hard to sort out the good from the stereotypical.  I did have an "inside source" to go to, however, a former exchange student and a friend.  I decided to ask him for some help.  He responded with a gloriously annotated list of books, music, and movies that I am starting to explore.

One of the first things I got was the album Acabou Chorare by Novos Baianos.  I love the sound of it.  It's happy music.  I can only understand pieces of it that drift through my Spanish, but I'm getting better, I think.  I don't care that I can't understand it.  I enjoy it anyway.  Oddly, there are parts of it that sound a lot like Widespread Panic to me.  I would love to know if anybody else thinks so, too....

I also went ahead and got the book on this page, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, yesterday.  I only read about two pages last night before sleep came and slammed me in the head with its mighty hammer, but I'm going to get into it today.  The premise looks interesting.  Thank God for Amazon and used books.  It's allowing me to do all this exploration on a budget.

I have another CD on the way, too.  It will be here after I get back from my Ireland/England trip next week.  It's supposed to be another fantastic slice of the musical culture.  That will be something to look forward to, a little present waiting on me.  It's from the 60s.  I love looking at what is going on and comparing the styles across time and nations.

Finally, I got a little Lonely Planet phrasebook.  I'm trying to learn basics from it, trying to use their phonetic pronunciation to help figure out how to say the necessary and polite phrases.  It's so hard without hearing it, though.  My Spanish keeps getting in the way as well.  I was trying to learn the numbers last night, and I kept slipping into Spanish when they were close. Grr!  I wish I lived near a university so I could take a class.  So frustrating!

The larger process of exploration is wonderful fun, though.  I have always loved language and culture, so this chance to delve deeply into a place as I prepare to go there in person is really just right up my alley.  All I want it just more, more, more.....