CUWinds Costa Rica

I was tricked into thinking this keyboard was an English keyboard but when I tried to insert a hyphen it gave me a comma and an underscore produced a question mark.

???

Anyways, before I dropped Philosophy of Everyday Life we had a brief discussion on what exactly a knickknack was.  Actually my philosophy teacher at a philosophy party had a philosophical discussion about the definition of a knickknack.  No conclusion was reached but I have titled this entry knickknacks because it will be a an assortment of thoughts that unfortunately cannot be grouped under a common theme, like my previous posts.  But please bear with me..

First: a continuation of the last post, on cultural points of interest.

Security: Crime in Costa Rica is nice in the sense that the majority of it is petty thievery.  I have been told by several sources that the reason why homicide is so prevalent in the United States is because of the large socioeconomic gaps that are present in small geographic locations (ie. a city).  Those gaps are not nearly as large nor as pervasive in this country.  I think the strife that such a gap presents is further eased by the fact that many of the very wealthy in this country are foreigners.  The two groups, rich and poor, are therefore incomparable since there are other criteria that often (but by certainly no means, always) separate the two.  In other words, it is easy for a poor Costa Rican to attribute wealth to the fact that the wealthy are foreigners, rather than to any other possible difference.  Being poor becomes much more bearable and there is little jealousy that arises as a result.

This is speculation, mind you, but the fact remains that most of the crime in Costa Rica revolves around stealing.

So because of this, all buildings have walls, barbed wire, or bars over the windows and doors to protect against thieves.  Many of the residential areas also have angry sounding, but relatively harmless, dogs.  It was very motivating to run up a steep hill at the end of our run in the mountains of San Isidro with a little dog quite literally nipping at our heels.

I think a lot of people were surprised by the amount of physical security, as it is often an indicator of poverty in the United States.  Having visited Sri Lanka and India several times though, I am not so much surprised by this but by the fact that the actual security guards (and police) are relatively useless.  I already mentioned how easily the police are bribed and if you talk to Garrett he will describe in great detail how unhelpful security guards are.

Churches: Like in many places in the world (notably Europe, in my experience) churches serve as the centerpieces of the towns in Costa Rica.  They are huge, beautiful, and not ornate but beautifully decorated.  Most memorably, the one in Santa Anna that we chanced upon while looking for a pulperia was a marvellous pink.

I have yet to decide how I feel about the fact that the local (I assume; I really have no idea) government allocates so much of their budget to building such exquisite churches when there are so many basic necessities that have yet to be fulfilled.  Of course religion for many is a basic necessity.  Regardless I still cannot see the logic behind prioritizing religion, which is nonessential to the physical functioning of your body, over food and clean water.  At any rate, I can admire at the very least that the people here love this one thing so much that they are willing to sacrifice certain essentials for it.  That is truly remarkable…

I think from here on out my points will become less cultural and more personal takes on my experience here.

Spanish: I took Spanish in high school and a little bit in college but have not touched it in the past year.  The first day in Poas was tricky and slightly disheartening because of the number of times I faltered or could not think of a word.  But after that, lots of it (minus some grammatical structures) came rushing back and I managed to trick some Costa Ricans into thinking I actually was of Spanish descent.  It is actually quite nice to come into a country and feel like a part of the majority, at least on appearance.  I cannot even have that feeling in India and Sri Lanka because I look so similar that my differences are much more striking.  I digress.

I am trying to figure out what age group is the easiest to understand.  In Argentina it was unquestionably the young kids, no more than 10 years old.  I interacted with very few children of that age, and the ones I did interact with did that cute little thing where they smile and hide behind their mothers’ legs.  I actually think the young teenagers were probably the most accepting of my terrible Spanish, the most willing to teach me the correct way, and were best able to discern what I was trying to communicate through my Spanglish.  They are however pretty difficult to understand because of their lack of enunciation.  I guess that’s a common feature of most cultures.

The adults and I would have conversations where the ideas were much more complicated than anything I have had experience with.  I found myself trying to ask whether Costa Rica’s investment in music would set the example for the rest of Latin America, for example…

By far the worst though were the old people (again, I suppose this is a common feature of all cultures).  I listened to a woman repeat herself over and over about how we should be on television and whether Graham was recording us for the TV and I explained to her again and again what the situation was.  That was probably the most lucid conversation I had.  Most of the others comprised of me shouting DISFRUTO AL CONCIERTO???? to no avail.  It was hilarious.  It’s even more amusing because it looks like I’m saying I enjoy the concert but I can’t find the accent for the O.  Or really any punctuation mark.  Like quotation marks…

Music: How could I go an entire twelve without talking about the reason why we’re all here?

Firstly a word on the fact that very few of us are music majors.  One of the first things I talked about with the couple I was sitting in between on the plane (I felt like an adopted child – the woman wanted to sit by the woman and the man preferred the aisle seat) asked whether there were any engineers in the band.  HA.

But it is, actually, remarkable that so few of us are music majors yet we value music so highly that we come to this trip and do what we do purely for its sake without any sort of academic compensation.  Other comparable universities do not have such programs and I will be completely presumptious in saying that it is because of a lack of that sort of mentality.  Word up, Cornell.

I am getting tired of typing but I will end this by saying that I think the most valuable, or at least my favorite part of this trip was the conducting master class in Pavas.  It very much fits the proverb that if you give a man a fish he will eat for a day but if you teach him how to fish he will eat for a lifetime.  Similarly we impact exponentially the music programs by teaching others how to teach.  I wish we as an ensemble could be a larger part of that idea instead of merely the guniea pig but guniea pigs are valuable.  Just look at all the research that we do with the rodent family.

Now I’m thinking about schizophrenia so I should probably end this here.  There is an open air market that is begging for exploration…

Iona Machado

As a relatively frequent traveller I enjoy keeping notes of the various cultural differences between the places I go to and the place I live:

Keyboards: This keyoard is written in Spanish and the keys are everywhere.  There are a few new ones like ñ, ç, and somehow I´ve hit something so the font looks like this and I can´t figure out how to change it back so I suppose the rest of my post will look like this.  Anyway the point is that apparently there are special keyboards designed for Costa Ricans.

Driving: The Costa Rican drivers are some of the most terrible I have seen, beating out places like Bombay, India and Dubai, UAE.  Quite an impressive feat.  There is no better way to appreciate your life and frailty (cheers, Nick) than to try running sandwiched between speeding trucks and a ditch.  I did sustain a few minor scrapes falling into a ditch before I realized that these trucks have pretty good control of what they´re doing.  Nevertheless, for every pedestrian death the Costa Rican government paints a giant yellow heart on the road as a means of remembrance.

Drinking: The official drinking is 16 but the kids I´ve talked to can´t even tell me when they started.  Drinking and driving used to be rather prevalent but after a number of related accidents the government began to crack down.  Offenders may now look forward to a minimum sentense of a liscence suspension and a maximum sentence of several years in prison.  However the cops, the enforcers of said laws, are poorly paid so if you happen to have an extra wad of cash, you can continue on your merry little way.

Motels: Motels in Costa Rica consist of windowless, one story buildings divided into four-walled compartments that can be enetered via garage-style doors.  You may rent one of these compartments (rooms, I daresay) for an hour for the explicit purpose of

Pedophilia: Having sex with the underaged is strictly prohibited in CR as a cardoard cutout of a severe looking man reminded me as I walked out of the airport.  Since then I have seen plenty of billboards discouraging such activity.  I even saw a sign in a bar going to far as to discourage pulic displays of affection.  Even more odd, signs with a heart with a slash through it, like a no-smoking sign, dot all of the highways in this country.  Contrary to intuition, CR is merely protecting its drivers by reminding them to wear seatbelts.  Love is absolutely not discouraged.

Pura Vida: The first thing, probably before the pedophilia comment, that was drilled into my head upon arriving to Costa Rica.  The literal translation is ¨pure life¨or more accurately ¨really pure life¨ since the noun typically precedes the adjective in Spanish grammer unless the meaning is unusually significant.  The general idea behind it is to relax and enjoy life a little more, stop worrying, take your time and learn to expect less.

As the next semester, with its endless winter peppered with way too many deadlines, stresses, and psycho landlords, I advise you all to take a leaf out of this one.

Pura vida indeed.

Iona Machado

Tuesday, the Cornell Winds enjoyed a rare morning off from teaching and playing to visit the famous waterfalls of Costa Rica.

The tour bus climbed the trecherous switchbacks far into the mountains of central Costa Rica and rode up and over the continental divide. Rain lashed the windshield and Alonzo, our driver, pointed out that rain falling in this particular spot would flow to the East — into the Carribean — or West, into the Pacific.

The road was rutted and gone in spots, and we could see the evidence of last year’s serious earthquake, which shook the region and destroyed parts of the mountainside. Fog enveloped the bus as we pulled into the waterfall park.  The Winds were disappointed that the unseasonably cool weather, fog and rain would impede their ability to enjoy the park. All the same, they dispersed in groups, left the safety of the lodge and ran off to view the butterflies, tropical birds, big cats and waterfalls, which were rumbling in the distance of the aptly named cloud forest.

Two hours later, at lunch in the beautiful confines of the lodge, drenched and shivering students traded stories of what they had seen. The waterfalls were raging down the side of the mountain. The water was roiling, boiling and dark brown with mud. Last year’s earthquake pulled down part of the mountain and the environs still seemed dangerous and unstable.  A couple of students got a little too close to the big cats in the cat enclosure; Cynthia displayed her shredded plastic poncho, which a Jaguar had snatched at from its cage.

It was a relief to board the bus again. Viewing waterfalls through a driving rain seems to make the whole concept of enjoying rushing water somewhat redundant — even in a beautiful and wild landscape.

The SINEM school in Desamparados is housed in a former concrete factory at the edge of a sprawling San Jose barrio and at the base of a mountain.  A dozen blocky buildings of varying sizes comprise the school. The buildings are being renovated, one by one, to serve the 500 music students of Desamparados.

Music spilled from each classroom space. Two hundred young violinists scratched their way through a rehearsal. The CU Winds broke up into insturmental groups and commenced their master classes.

Of all the schools visited so far, the school at Desamparados seemed to be delivering the most on the SINEM promise of bringing music to the masses.  The CU Winds met with students who were ready to learn. The classes were challenging and successful. Music from each small classroom created an almost deafening din. In this context, deafening is good. Deafening means that music is happening, that people are learning, demonstrating, and playing together.

At the end of the sessions, the CU winds climbed back into their bus, trading stories of their experiences. Tomorrow they would visit Desamparados again, to follow up on the promise of today.

As we approach the halfway point of the tour, I thought it was time I wrote again, as so much has happened since our arrival here.

For me, the most valuable part of this tour is the opportunity to reflect on and improve the way we work with the Costa Rican students on a day-by-day basis. We started off two days ago in Paos, a small hamlet described eloquently by Amy Dickinson in earlier posts, where we were introduced to our first students. All along, I imagined that coming into this sort of situation there would be a great deal of coordination at the school being visited, and that I would be prepped ahead of time on the methodology one should use to teach beginner-level musicians. Of course, with a full-sized ensemble as big as ours, and the nature of many of the schools we visit, this was naive in the extreme. Instead, we were briefly thanked by the principle as a group, then divided into sections by instrument and ushered out of the gymnasium in search of rooms where master classes could be conducted. It quickly showed that this was the first time on the Costa Rica Tour for my entire section, and to make matters worse, only half of us speak Spanish. Though we spent the first hour overwhelmed, fumbling with different exercises and warmups, we eventually managed to get all playing through their band music in unison and offer a few butchered, yet at least slightly meaningful critiques of their playing.

What you discover quickly here is that you simply have to learn on the job. Just like the students we’re working with, unless we also make a conscious effort to improve what we do, we’ll be condemned to wasting hours of time, while other instrument sections are making genuine progress. However, like all things, practice makes perfect, and as I’ve had more time to get to know and work with the other flute players in the ensemble, as a section we’ve become much stronger as far as running class goes.

Yesterday, we visited Desamparados, one of the poorer schools to which we travel, which is situated in a former concrete factory. Furthermore, we had our largest group of students yet – twelve children ages 11-17, with only four of us. Nonetheless, almost miraculously, it was if something went off within our group, and things seemed to suddenly fall into place. Within minutes we had everyone’s names down, and found ourselves tuning the entire group with considerable success. Next we arranged to have all twelve overcome shyness and stand in front of the group to play a solo performance. After everyone had finished, we strayed a bit from the traditional format of the master class, and played solo works of ours for them, asking them to comment on our playing just as we did for them. It was clear that we had reached a comfortable atmosphere when one of the youngest girls in the lower orchestra adamantly (and, indeed, correctly) scolded me for my habit of occasionally letting my posture slide, and lowering my instrument while playing. She informed me later that I might have a larger sound if I held it more consistently  level – advice I have also received from my teacher at home. All this coming from a first-year student, who I believe was only about 13.

In short, we got what we signed up for, and in the early stages it was a struggle. Luckily, as we go to a new school daily, there is constant turnover, and anything that goes wrong today can be improved upon tomorrow. It will be interesting to see where we are at the end of the trip, and for now, it is inspiring to see what can become of the interactions between us and the kids we work with.

 A rainbow arched over the town square of Poas just as the Cornell Wind Ensemble was rehearsing in the auditorium/basketball court nearby.

It was late afternoon and the square was cris crossed by churchgoers, families, and errant dogs looking for a snack. A flag flapped in the stiff breeze and a cool mist blew down the mountain.

The Winds tutored students all afternoon at the large school in Poas and now both groups split off and changed clothes for the concert. Clusters of Poas students toting instruments and wearing freshly pressed concert black and whites strode down the uneven sidewalks toward the venue.

The auditorium was a modest but servicable large concrete structure with a tin roof and tattered basketball nets dangling over the musician’s chairs.  The bleachers lining one side quickly filled with families wearing their Sunday best; as word of the concert spread, people strode down from the square to have a look and listen.

Introductions were passed in Spanish and English.  The Poas students began the concert, playing tentatively but well. The Cornell students joined them for “Wildwood Overature.”  The Cornell Winds wedged themselves amongst the Costa Rican students — all playing together on a piece they had worked on in master class during the day.  The full house was very enthusiastic; a group of Canadian expatriates who are boosters and organizers of the effort noted that the Poas students have made great leaps since the first visit by the Winds, two years ago. Now their playing is two years’ advanced, the community is behind them, their instruments are better and there are more of them.  Poas hosted the concert with pride, installing bright red curtains behind the band and overflowing the venue with spectators.

The Cornell Wind Ensemble opened with the overature from “West Side Story,” moved on to the beautiful “O Magnum Mysterium,” by Lauridsen; “Concertino for Four Percussionists by David Gillingham; closing with the crowd-pleasing “Selections from ‘The Wiz.’” Four gentlemen sitting in front of me went a little crazy when the horn section stood up, blasting. They scrambled for their cameras to capture the moment as if they were at Las Vegas and Doc Severson was playing. 

The group performed Offenbach’s “Ballet Parissien” for an encore — another number with choreography created by the students. During rehearsals Cindi had veto power over the choreography, declaring at one point, “You — dancing looks very bad when you do it.” But they got it together and it looked charming.

After the standing ovations, the Cornell Winds presented the students from Poas with several new instruments, a hefty collection of sheet music (sorely needed), T-shirts and a plaque featuring a photo of the group. After posing for group photos, congratulating one another, exchanging gifts, wiping their tears and helping to clear the venue, the Cornell group packed their instruments, boarded the bus, and bid goodbye to Poas.

Back at their hotel, students mingled, pulled out their laptops, tried in vain to call their parents and reflected on the spirit of the day. “The audience was amazing; one of the best audiences I’ve ever played for,”  said Tom Weber — a percussionist and graduate student in Engineering.  The Cornell students basked in their success at the end of their first successful day on tour.  We sat and talked for hours and the topic was “teachers” — the legacy great teachers leave for their students.

I wondered as we talked if these young students realized that they had become teachers. They had left an imprint much more indelible — but as unforgettable – as the rainbow gracing the town square in a place called Poas.

Amy Dickinson

January 10, 2010

 Thriving communities are noisy and full of life.  Pavas, on the outskirts of San Jose, is strangely quiet. Shops are shuttered, traffic is sparse, and the inhabitants seem to be living behind chain link fences.

 The community center at Pavas advertises itself as the location for funeral parties, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and Sweet 16 parties. Four days a week, this plain but tidy concrete building is home to a new SINEM school.

The CU Winds started their week by teaching day-long master classes and demonstrating their playing technique for a workshop led by Cindi for aspiring conductors. Eight future conductors submitted to a critique and coaching.

 The wind ensemble’s job was to follow the student conductors. That’s not always as easy as it may seem. Some conductors seemed to favor a strong martial style while others were more squishy, vague and unsure. Cindi hopped in frequently, demonstrating technique, posture, phrasing – always reminding the conductors that they are in charge of translating, interpreting, and transmitting the music from the musicians to the audience.  One candidate commented during class that in Costa Rica, orchestras don’t tend to follow conductors very closely. There is no strong conducting tradition and so conductors tend to come from musician ranks – and other musicians don’t listen to them.

Pablo, director of the school, said he hoped that with stronger training, conductors can teach and lead young musicians to perform in a more disciplined way.

After two hours of playing, the CU Winds ate a quick snack, lead master classes to students, and then set up to perform.

As dusk enveloped the neighborhood, families came out to the community center and sat in folding chairs with their kids in their lap. The group opened with West Side Story (surprisingly, few audience members in Costa Rica seem familiar with this American classic), moved into “Gum-suckers”  (an Australian favorite), played the crowd favorite “The Wiz” and entertained the audience with their self-choreographed Offenbach.

At one point, I looked out toward the parking lot and saw four little boys with their noses literally pressed to the window, transfixed by the percussion section.

After the concert, we all rode the long ride back to our hotel over now familiar narrow winding switchbacks. We ate a buffet dinner at the hotel and then most in the group went to bed early. Only a few of us stayed up late, watching bad American television with Spanish subtitles and emailing our loved ones from the wireless station at the hotel’s reception area.

We hear the weather home in Ithaca is seasonably unreasonable and savored reports that the temperature got down to zero and stayed there.

It’s already hard to imagine that just last week our sweaters, down jackets and ear-covering headgear was so necessary. Now these things just crowd the bottom of our suitcases, underneath the tangle of T-shirts and flip flops.

 We don’t mean to rub our Ithacan friends and familys’ noses in snow, but doing so much hard work has its compensations, even beyond the satisfaction of giving and making great music. If there is a little sunburn involved, then so be it.

 Amy Dickinson

January 11, 2010

It is half past six in the morning and I have been awake since quarter to 4 with unbelievable amounts of energy.  This has been almost a daily ritual since the night we left for Costa Rica and fortunately for me I have yet to feel the aftermath of little sleep.

Day 1: Back in elementary school, if you sat at the front of the bus you were considered a nerd.  Being one of the last ones on the bus, I didn’t have a choice, but I discovered several hours later that it offered me a surprisingly interesting view.  Around 4, maybe half an hour or so before we arrived in Newark I stood up, turned around, and looked at the fifty or so dozing faces behind me.  Some casually let their heads fall on the shoulders of their neighbors, while most other pairs seemed like they were trying to maximize the space between themselves.  It’s not surprising.  For all the time we spend with each other, we don’t know each other at all.  How could we possibly be comfortable enough to relax as we try to sleep on a bus?  I remember hoping that by the end of the trip people would form strong enough friendships that they needn’t feel so awkward around each other.

I myself did not sleep a wink that night.  I was too busy developing a new friendship with my own neighbor.

Day 2: I woke up with a very strong urge to use the bathroom at 4 or so in the morning.  I tiptoed in the dark to the bathroom where I stepped on a very soaked towel hugging the base of the toilet.  I opted to wait three hours until someone woke up so I could use their bathroom, instead of causing another deluge.

Unfortunately the urge was too strong to sleep so I lay in bed for two hours thinking about what to blog.  I got tired of waiting and the birds were squawking as if they were never to squawk again, so I grabbed a blanket and my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and curled up in a chair outside to watch the world wake up.

I mean there isn’t that much to write about really.  I saw a squirrel (not a marsupial) with a thin body and the face of a lemur, several ugly looking birds with beautiful voices (Susan Boyle style), and an older gentlemen who refused to speak with me in Spanish.  He kindly pointed me to an open bathroom I could have used two hours earlier had I known about it.  I watched as a couple of people arose and sauntered off to the pool to read.  I saw Ritchie and Wyatt both wake up from their beds, rubbing their eyes and looking at me as if I were a ghost.  And, like any successful ghost, I scared the living daylights out of Kenny as he opened his door and saw me bundled up right there at his doorstep.

Day 3: I got 6 hours of sleep.  There’s nothing interesting in that.

Day 4 (today!): I woke up at 3:45 to the sounds of snores and very loud cars or motorcycles driving undoubtedly recklessly on the highway.  I was a little overheated, so I kicked off my sheet and switched on my ipod.  Two hours later I was not getting anywhere in the sleep department so I, resisting the urge to run, went exploring around the grounds of the hotel.  Most of the staff was already awake by this point (around 6) and were friendlier than ever.  I found an American family with two little children running around – they must have just arrived.  In fact half an hour ago the father was sitting here clearly waiting to use the computer.  He has long since left.

They actually turn off the waterfalls here overnight which is very disappointing.  I feel as if there is enough beauty in Costa Rica; there is no need to artificially add more.  Yesterday a bunch of us set out in hunt of a “pulperia” and ended up walking a few miles.  That is probably the best way to see this country, in my opinion.  The coffee plantations, the people, the fallen trees, the trucks that teeter and totter on the windy roads, the construction workers that unfortunately are not used to seeing a woman’s legs, the grandmothers that give you directions in Spanish nice and slowly…that’s the way to do it.

-Iona Machado

Poas is a town about the size of Ithaca nestled on the side of a mountain, which pushes up into the cloud forest of Costa Rica.  Like Ithaca, the streets of Poas tend to run at alarmingly steep angles; every street in Poas is Buffalo street.  As in Ithaca, the dogs of Poas tend to lounge around, sniffing the sidewalks and taking up with the friendliest passerby. The vibe in Poas is relaxed. The shops are shuttered and church goers linger at the village square. It’s Sunday. and the CU Winds have come to play.

After about ten mintues of lounging near the hotel pool in the morning, the CU Winds slathered on some more SPF 55 and headed to their first day-long gig, teaching master classes at the Liceo de Poas school, followed by a late afternoon concert.

The Winds were greeted enthusiastically in Spanish, English and semiphore. They dispensed with their language issues quickly, unpacked their instruments, and went straight to work, communicating in the only language we all share.

The Winds set up with their master class students in a string of classrooms which were open to the elements and to the sounds of marimbas, tubas, piccolos, trumpets and french horns blending in together. At one point I heard the Cosa Rica National Anthem played on trumpet coming out of one room and “Stars and Stripes Forever” on flute coming from another at the same time. By the times the tunes reached each other it and braided themselves together in the mountainous breeze of Poas, it wasn’t a nationalistic mash up, but a beautiful duet.

Amy Dickinson

Sunday Jan 10, 2010

Reports from Ithaca that it is 8 degress and still snowing have not been exaggerated; this just makes us feel the warmth of Costa Rica even more. People sneakily check the weather in upstate New York on their lap tops in order to remind themselves how lucky we all have been to escape it for a few days.

This morning the Cornell students are packing — yet again — to set off to a small town just north of our current location to conduct master classes with young students and perform together later this afternoon.

The day is beautiful, breezy and warm.