sign created by Jim Restin

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Musical Waiting To Happen!

"Every moment is a musical waiting to happen!", expressed one of our volunteers, as she described charming, chaotic everyday Jamaican scenarios.
The public bus, the taxi stands, markets, churches, town centers, roadways, schools, ~ swarming with passionate life. Song erupting everywhere, carelessly and freely shared, and expressed with abandon.
   Like the "street scenes" in Porgy and Bess, La Boheme, Oliver, Carmen and others...public life in Jamaica erupts, surges, sways, dances, all to a mutual beat. Look up, around, over ~ and witness the overwhelming potential of a grand expressive musical/operatic experience just waiting to happen. And what glorious music it would be! Tragedy, Joy, Struggle, Success...
   SCENE: The bus park in a central Jamaican city: We enter from the crowded roadway in a small group ~ so clearly visible as some foreign white women travelling with shoulder bags to Kingston. The bus loaders yell out and grab at us, shout in our faces with gesturing, conducting arms, surging as an operatic men's chorus..with cries of: "Kingston dis way!" "Tek yuh bags?" Mi find yuh good seat!" "Come,come ladies, Kingston bus ovah here!" We are propelled and urged forward, even as we yell back:" NO tek bags! We keep bags!" 
   The buses are small "Coaster" vehicles, with approximately 30 seats ~ but where you find 3 seats, 6 are forced to sit. The loader and driver expertly maneuver each of us into every available centimeter of space ~ Children in crevices, bags under seats and feet, bags across laps, windows wide open on both sides, people selling fruit, drinks and banana chips through the windows, shouting and trading.As the door closes on the last standing passenger, the Chistian music starts and we jolt forward onto the mountain roads and highways, 2 hours of passionate Jamaican life!
   Songs begin. People sing. Money is passed overhead trustingly throughout the bus, as the loader calls for the fare. Everyone helps, cooperates, as if part of a scripted scene ~ until one woman erupts in protest over here child's fare. AH! Time out for an aria, duet with the loader, trio with the driver perhaps, as he stops the bus, walks back to her window...and what ensues potentially becomes a full jazz opera! ....passion more real and intense than any stage can set or inspire.
   Driving on, standard neighborliness settles once more. We are one. We are the world. Who will write our musical? Every moment in Jamaica...a musical waiting to happen.
Peace to you all ~ Susan/Mom

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