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rossasaurus
Lokahi
USA
306 Posts |
 Posted - 08/24/2005 : 3:23:44 PM
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Aloha everyone,
I'm working with a project to collect usable musical instruments for young people in the Cape Verde Islands, off the West coast of Africa, near Senegal. The project is called SALT; check it out.
http://www.awish.net/Africa/salt.htm
The Cabo Verde Islands(CV) are volcanic islands with fairly small populations. These islands were part of the Portuguese empire for a long time, and finally fought for and gained their independence in the 1970's.
Since they were connected to the portuguese, can you guess which musical instruments might be enjoyed there? That's right, the cavaquinho...err, the UKULELE.
You may have heard the beautiful music of Cesarea Evora; she is Cabo Verde's most famous musician, who sings in Portuguese, or Creolo.
If you haven't heard CV music, it's very soulful, mournful.
CV was a stopping-off place for the slave trade for a very long time, and a major pirate hangout for about a century, so it's a real mix of African and European & many other influences.
Cabo Verdeans rely on tourism, mostly from Europe, to keep themselves fed and housed. These islands, unlike most of Hawai`i's , have no real "wet" side. They're very dry, with little rainfall or forest canopy at all.
The economy for locals is very poor....thus this project.
The SALT project(link below) aims to train interested youth in many aspects of music. From theory and performance, to production and luthery and much more.
SALT is in the initial stage, where they are collecting unwanted or underutilized instruments for the students of CV to learn on.
They have specifically asked for ukuleles, mandolins and nylon guitars(steel string is ok too). Anything will work, as long as its playable and not broken. They don't have the luthery instruction set up yet, so they don't want repairs just now.
Sets of strings would be welcomed as well. Or even random strings that aren't in sets.
I'm acting as the California focal point for collecting and forwarding the instruments either to CV, or to the coordinator who lives in Seattle. He is taking a group of Seattle musicians over in September for a musical exchange, and will be shipping any instruments collected then as well. So far, I've got one guitar, and three old ukes to donate.
My sense of Hawai`i is that if a keiki wants to play, then an instrument can be had, and will be provided to them, one way or another.
My sense of CV is that instruments are few and far between; no trees for wood to make, no money to buy, few instruments.
I KNOW just about everyone out there has one or more wall-hangers or dust gatherers that could be put to good use by these students.
If you can contribute, that would be excellent!
You can either send them to me(Ross) to bundle together into a single shipment, or to Johnny at the address below.
If you're coming to Cathe's kanikapila Saturday, Aug 26th in Mill Valley, you could bring them along and I'll pack 'em home with me.
If you donate an item, please place your name and address on a slip of paper and tuck it inside the instrument, or attach it somehow.
Send them here:
Ross Randrup
P.O. Box 851 (USPS)
11341 Barnett Vlly. Rd. (UPS or Fedex)
Sebastopol, CA 95473
or here:
Project SALT
Johnny Fernandes
2105 First Avenue
#403
Seattle, WA 98121
If you plan to send anything along, please email me to let me know to watch out for it in the mails.
mahalo,
Ross
Hope this doesn't sound too much like one of the Nigerian scams out there!
call me if you've got questions: 707.529.one-one-nine-eight
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Edited by - rossasaurus on 08/24/2005 3:28:17 PM |
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KoAloha
Akahai
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2005 : 5:36:32 PM
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Hi Ross,
Please contact me through e-mail, regarding this project, and how we can help. You can send something to our general inbox, via our website, and I'll put you in contact with my brother from there.
www.koaloha.com
Aloha,
Paul |
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