This is not a fictional movie
but a true story.
Cateura in Paraguay is one
of the poorest slums in Latin America. About 2,500 families live here with their
small house next to the huge garbage dump; most of the residents have no electricity,
drinking water is polluted, kids are wandering between dropping out of school,
boken family, crimes and drugs.
About 1,500 tons of garbage
delivered here everyday. The major income of the villagers relies on scavenging;
they search for recyclable materials in the garbage dump, Nicolás Gómez is one
of them.
Another
Kind of Musical Instruments
One day, as Nicolás found an
old, broken violin in the garbage dump, change is in the air for the ordinary
slum.
Nicolás showed the broken
violin to Favio Chávez in the village. Favio is a foreign Environmental
Engineer who came to Cateura for a recycling project. As years passed, Favio has
built friendship with the local residents. Favio has been planning to teach
music to the kids in the village, however, in that poor & barren community,
a violin is more expensive than a house.
Nicolás & Favio thought
of scrapping various types of used & broken stuffs from the garbage dump into
musical instruments. They even started to dream about the birth of a “Recycled
Orchestra”.
Through the crafty hands of Nicolás,
oil barrel & kitchen utensils became a “cello”, water pipe & spoons
turned into a “flute”, crate & marmalade tin made into “guitar”…… Each instrument
is a unique piece.
Kids in the village love
these “Garbage Instruments” made by uncle Nicolás; they came to the musical
class irregardless of sunny or rainy days. Under the patient instruction by teacher
Favio, sweet-sounding music started to flow from these unusual musical
instruments……
Garbage Turned Instruments,
Kids Turned Orchestra
After 4 years of experiment,
Nicolás & Favio have figured out the knack. They know which recycled
materials are best made into certain types of musical instruments; the tune of
their instruments is getting finer and more precise.
The kids were not only
learning to play musical instruments from teacher Favio, they have also learned
from uncle Nicolás making instruments with recycled materials. Up to date there
are more than 200 kids benefited from this project.
After several years of cultivating,
the dream of Nicolás & Favio, “Recycled Orchestra”, is gradually becoming a
reality.
The public started to notice
the miracle happening in this village. Emmy Award nominated director Graham
Townsley made the story of “Recycled Orchestra” into a documentary called “Landfill
Harmonic”.
Over the year, “Recycled
Orchestra” led by teacher Favio has started to travel internationally. They
played at countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Columbia, Arizona in the
United States, Germany……and received good responses.
The Honor for the
Garbage Village
Teacher Favio said in
“Landfill Harmonic”, “People realize that we shouldn't throw away trash
carelessly, and we shouldn't throw away people either.”
In the movie, Juan Manuel
Chavez , a shy 18 years-old boy, played the “Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.
1” with a cello made of used oil barrel
& broken kitchen utensils --- If you listen with eyes closed, it sounded
not much different from an expensive cello.
15 years-old girl Ada Rios
said, “When I play the violin I feel transported to a beautiful place --- clear sky, green field, no garbage, no
pollution……”
During the “60 Minutes”, United
States TV documentary, Ada’s grandmother Mirian Rios said, “I would say it's a
blessing from God. People used to humiliate us and call us ‘trash pickers’;
today they are more civilized and call us the ‘recyclers’. So I feel that this
is a reward from God that our children who come from this place can play
beautiful music in this way.”
The kids who used to be
ignored & forgotten by the world, they are now standing on the stage of the
world, courageously plying the symphonies of music masters.
The kids from Cateura originally
can’t escape the fate of “joining gasters, becoming drug dealers”. However, as
the “garbage” from Cateura were reclaimed & made into musical instruments,
the kids from Cateura were also shaped into world class orchestra, and have found
the meaning & purpose of their lives. As a result, not only the whole community
was transformed, other corners on earth were also being influenced……
Misplaced Resources
I believe there’s no such
vocabulary as “garbage” in God’s dictionary.
If man were wiling to
cherish & make good use of every natural resource created by God, the
resources are actually enough to supply our needs forever, which is the common word
“sustainable” we have been mentioning now-a-day.
However, somehow along the
way, mankind has invented “throw away” culture --- unreasonable & madly
discarding.
Anne Leonard, the
environmental pioneer from United States said in her book “The Story of Stuff”,
“We engage in non-stop buying, non-stop throwing, but we do not realize our
health and environment have been greatly damaged during the process.”
What happen to the stuffs
after being discarded? In the documentary “Trashed”, starring Academy Award winner
Jeremy Irons, mentioned that, “‘Garbage’ if aren’t buried at landfills forever,
they’ll be burned in the incinerators, or floating away to oceans --- non of
these places should be the destinations for ‘garbage’.”
If we were to start looking
at “garbage” from the right point of view, we will discover that these so
called “garbage”, are actually “misplaced resources”.
Being Honored together
with the Land
The relationship between man
& land is far deeper that we could ever imagine.
As Genesis 1:28 and Psalms
8:6 in the Bible say, God commanded man to take good care of animals in the field,
birds in the sky, fish in the sea --- That was actually a commandment attached with
blessings, because the goodwill of God during creation was that: Man will take
good care of the land, and the land will also function, provide & produce
for man.
When man reaffirm the value
of “garbage”, man will also find their self-value.
Just like the “Recycled
Orchestra” from Cateura --- Man & land are mutually blessing each other,
and shining brightly together in the hand of the Creator……
HoeyTee
( Chinese version was published
in the “Shepherd” section of Nanyang Siang Pau on 2014.1.12 )
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