Rachel Nielsen 4/15/13 11:26 AM
Recycled Rhapsody
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Cateura, one of the poorest cities in Paraguay, is ruled by its enormous landfill. Nearly everyone who calls this small town their home works at the landfill and lives in shacks made from corrugated metal and scrap wood that were found among the garbage. Over the years, ton after ton of solid waste flowed down from the capital city, Asunción, to the landfill in Cateura. Because the people had no place to dispose of their own garbage, the trash piled high in the city
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and filled the lagoon, leaving the land and the water polluted and unsanitary. But out of the piles
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of trash and the ramshackle buildings comes the melody of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The
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unexpected, beautiful sound of violins and cellos drifts across the landfill.
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The majority of Cateura’s youth join their neighbors in working in the landfill. These youth must sort through the 1500 tons of waste that arrives in the landfill every day. This job often keeps teenagers out of school—and thereby from the possibility of a better future. In this difficult situation, the youth are at high risk for using drugs and joining gangs; one
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young girl attributes her peers’ lack of study time to drug and alcohol addiction. With no
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education, no wholesome activities, and no hope for the future, the children of Cateura have
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almost no choice but to remain there, living out their lives confined to the landfill.
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But, one man refused to let the Cateura youth succumb to this fate. In April of 2009 Favio Chávez, a music teacher, committed to engage his students in something positive by
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teaching them to play instruments, and Luis Szarán, director of a nonprofit organization that establishes music programs in poor areas, aided the cause. Since an average violin was worth more than a student’s house, Chávez let the kids play with instruments from his own collection. But the demand surpassed all of Chávez’s expectations: the kids loved to make music. “When I listen to the sound of a violin, I feel butterflies in my stomach,” says thirteen-year-old Ada Bordados. “It’s a feeling I don’t know
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how to explain.” With excitement like this coming from many of the city’s youth, soon there were not enough instruments for everyone who wanted to learn. With only five instruments to share among them, the aspiring musicians grew bored. It seemed that the music school would not
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prove successful. But Chávez did not give up. The landfill workers often sort through the trash to look for anything of value to sell. One
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of these workers, Nicolas Gomez, can make anything out of the items he finds in the landfill. One day, he came across the battered husk of a violin, and the idea was born. Chávez recruited Gomez to build drums, cellos, violins, saxophones, and more for the music school. He used anything and everything that could be found in the trash—bottle caps, old x-rays, canisters, metal bowls, forks, jelly cans, scrap metal, and other rubbish. A 19-year-old boy named Juan Manuel Chávez plays a cello made from oil cans,
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discarded pieces of wood, and a fork that connects the strings. The tuning pegs are made of pieces of a meat tenderizer and an old gnocchi maker. Szarán says, “People say, ‘This is something I threw away because it is useless.’ But when they see us, they see the same useless materials being transformed into a musical instrument.” From this project, a group of about thirty students, led by Chávez, became known as Los Reciclados, or the Recycled Orchestra. The Recycled Orchestra inspired their town with the
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classical music of Beethoven and Mozart, as well as their own renditions of Beatles hits. And even more impressive is the fact that the current members of the Recycled Orchestra have now learned to build their own violins and guitars.
Rachel Nielsen 3/13/13 3:26 PM Deleted: The members of the orchestra have inspired each other to value their own lives more. “[The music] will help some not to start with drugs or other addictions,” says one young musician. “Let the music be your addiction.”
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As word of the Recycled Orchestra spread across cities, regions, and countries, they
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began performing in various cities in their home country of Paraguay, and eventually they received the opportunity to play in several South American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. The students, most of whom had rarely left the borders of Cateura, reveled at the prospect of traveling beyond the landfill. The luxuriousness of these foreign locations contrasted greatly with Cateura’s poor and polluted atmosphere. The young performers stayed in grand hotels instead of the small wooden shacks they were accustomed to; they swam in the sky-blue waters at Rio de Janeiro, something they would not dream of doing in the contaminated streams of their hometown. Learning to play and make instruments and traveling to share their talent with others, these students have genuinely dedicated their lives to their art, and that dedication has paid off
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exponentially. The members of the orchestra have inspired each other to value their own lives
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more. “The music will help some not to start with drugs or other addictions,” says one young musician. “Let the music be your addiction.” Another young girl adds, “My life would be worthless without music.” Slate reporter David Haglund shares how moving the transformation in these young people is: “If you do not lose it a little when 19-year-old Juan Manuel Chávez starts playing Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 on an instrument ‘made from an oil can and wood that was thrown away in the garbage,’ then you are made of sterner stuff than I.”
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The original students who first attended Favio Chávez’s music classes have gone on to pursue other dreams, but their legacy continues as curious new students join the orchestra to discover the magic of music. These students have proven that people can make the most out of what life hands them—even garbage. “The world sends us garbage,” says Chávez. “We send back music.”
[Sidebar] The Documentary The story of the Recycled Orchestra is currently being made into a feature-length documentary, Landfill Harmonic, to be released in 2014. The directors hope to show how important it is that the formerly hopeless children have undergone a kind of metamorphosis; these neglected Paraguayan citizens have been carefully polished and fine-tuned into something beautiful, just like the trash they used to create the instruments they play. For more information about the upcoming documentary, go to http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com/
Rachel Nielsen 3/13/13 3:46 PM Deleted: The Performance Word of the beauty of their music and the uniqueness of their instruments spread across cities, regions, and countries. The Recycled Orchestra was invited to perform in various cities in their home country of Paraguay. Eventually they received the opportunity to play in several South American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. The students, most of whom had rarely left the borders of Cateura, reveled at the prospect of traveling to Copacabana’s sunny coastlines. The luxuriousness of these locations contrasted greatly with Cateura’s poor and polluted atmosphere. The Rachel Nielsenstayed 3/13/13 3:37hotels PM instead of young performers in grand Formatted: Indent: line:accustomed 0.5" the small wooden shacksFirst they were to; they swam in the sky-blue waters at Rio de Janeiro, something they would not dream of doing in the contaminated streams of their hometown. The performances gave them the chance to show the world how so much could come from so little. “The world sends us garbage,” says Chávez. “We send back music.” The Documentary The story of the Recycled Orchestra is currently being made into a feature-length documentary, Landfill Harmonic, to be released in 2014. The documentary focuses on three members of the orchestra. The directors hope to show how important it is that the formerly hopeless children have undergone a kind of metamorphosis; these neglected Paraguayan citizens have been carefully polished and fine-tuned into something beautiful, just like the trash they used to create the instruments they play. Szarán believes that people should “put more attention to the things [they] throw away. We shouldn’t throw away people, either.”
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Rachel Nielsen 3/13/13 2:58 PM Deleted: Like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie —Rachel Ontiveros
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The Music !
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