Awwwwwww Music!!

Ok…here is a good reason for being here. I was sitting in the courtyard last night with all of the family, as they cooked dinner, and visited with each other. I was studying French, and also listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters, on my ipod. Ka-fuir had just returned from a shopping trip in Lome’, and she was showing me what she had purchased. She had bought a bottle of skin cream, some fabric and some oranges for me. It was a pleasant evening. There was a breeze, and everyone seemed happy and in a good mood.

I’ve been warned many times, to not let anyone know I have a computer or an ipod or anything that might be tempting for someone to steal….but little, by little I have brought out all the wonders of technology to my host family. First the computer. Showing them the pictures I took of them on my wide-screen computer, just blew them away.

I was really enjoying listening to Bridge Over Trouble Waters. It’s such a pretty song. I asked Ka-fuir if she wanted to hear what I was listening too. She put my ear plugs in, and laughed, and hummed and swayed back and forth to the music. She then gave one of her ear plugs to Modess…the little four year old, and they both had this look that’s hard to describe. I guess wonderment and joy is the best way to describe it. I then let everyone…one by one listen. I can hardly express what it was like to see them hear this song on my ipod. First Ka-fuir, then the teenage girls, Nell-a and Ack-bennie, and then even Ka-fuirs mother reluctantly listened. By the end of the song everyone was dancing and humming, and the looks on their faces was pure joy.

So, I guess being the person who gets to introduce the wonders of technology for the very first time to adults seems like a real gift to me. They don’t have a television and Ka-fuir told me that she nor Say-seel have ever seen a movie. Next up: I’m going to play a movie on my computer for them. Any suggestions on what I should show them. I’d like to get a French Film so they can fully understand it.

The movie will be great, but I don’t think anything will top the looks on their faces as they listened to Bridge Over Trouble Waters on my ipod. That one moment makes it all worth while.