Music as Therapy

News from Bethlehem 8

Hannah:
Yesterday we celebrated the 60th birthday of the SOS organization and we had a great day! The children all went away for a picnic with the SOS school whilst at the village we gathered with the mothers, the aunts, all the people who work for SOS Bethlehem and the Principal and deputy principal of the SOS School to celebrate something that is no doubt being celebrated all over the world. We listened to speeches by the directors here at the village and a visitor from the Ministry of Education in Bethlehem (give me a couple more months of my Arabic studies and I would have understood every word!), ate lots of cake and then all went outside to release 60 balloons painted with the SOS logo into to sky. Seeing everyone celebrate together really highlighted the closeness of this village which has a fantastic family feeling running throughout.

After a morning off joining in with the celebrations we decided to compensate for all the cake we had eaten by hiking up the hill to Yasser Arafat Street. There we visited Valentine Music Shop and bought many instruments we had decided upon for both the SOS school and the village. Now that we have got to know the staff that we are training very well Liz and I had a play with the instruments in the shop to decide which ones would be most beneficial and how they could be incorporated into the training. We’re really looking forward to adding these to the collection and using them in our upcoming sessions.

Outside our sessions and once all is finished for the day one of the things I enjoy is visiting the houses with my clarinet and having some fun with the children. Having made the mistake initially of trying to entertain ten children in one go I have now got a great system of playing with one child at a time! Yesterday I visited a little friend who is very ill this week and having spoken with his mother we thought a little music might cheer him up. With my clarinet and a couple of the quieter percussion instruments (!) we spent about twenty minutes playing and improvising together and had a few funny conversations in our usual broken Arabic/English way!

News from Bethlehem 7

The weather is now well and truly British!  The clear skies at night mean that it is quite chilly here now, and Hannah is feeling the lack of enough warm clothes!  Fortunately, I bought a lovely warm shawl in Jerusalem and a couple of scarves, so may be able to manage for the next two and a half weeks.
 
It’s been lovely to see our groups and individuals being able to use the therapeutic space in the sessions for creative music-making. Staff  are gradually becoming able to allow pupils to experiment with improvisation, which we think is very brave of them, as none of them are musicians first and foremost.
 
The students are also very committed to attending their sessions.  One 16 year-old boy yesterday had asked if he could go home as he had a tooth-ache.  On being told, yes, but he would miss his music as therapy group, he immediately changed his mind! Staff were very impressed with this turnaround, as this particular student struggles with the daily routine of school.
 
The colder weather has also given Hannah and I the excuse of finding more delicious snacks to fill us up.  Yesterday in a break we discovered a lovely little café with filled pita breads, and also bought pastries to eat with our afternoon cup of tea.  Later on this evening, our housemother Aisha will no doubt make us a pot of tea, brewed with sage, the traditional Palestinian way of drinking tea.