La Paz, March 1. “The world sends us garbage, we give it back music”, is the motto of the Paraguayan Orchestra of Recycled Instruments from Cateura who came to Bolivia to sow “a seed” and motivate young people to make their own violins and drums with recycled materials. .
Some 45 young people who make up the orchestra live near landfills in Paraguay and were at “risk of exclusion”, but found refuge in music and recycling, orchestra director Favio Chávez told EFE.
What people consider garbage, they see as a useful part to create instruments that bring other children closer to the “dream”, he added.
“In my community there are dumps and since I have been a member of this orchestra, everything I see is useful to invent an instrument, I already have that in my heart,” said Matías Rojas, 19, who plays the harp. EFE.
For the first time, these young Paraguayans will give a series of concerts in Bolivia with their particular wooden instruments, cans, lids, pipes, spoons and buckets that they recovered from a dump in Asunción to give them a “second luck” by transforming them into violins, double basses and drums.
“Music changes people (…) music gives them many values that they may not have in their environment, such as responsibility, sensitivity, commitment, tolerance which develop by doing music together and changing, even if it’s gradual, it eventually gets noticed in people,” Chávez said.
For her part, the Ambassador of Paraguay in Bolivia, Terumi Matsuo de Claverol, stressed to EFE the importance of showing the youngest that “with a little ingenuity” great things can be achieved and that this also contributes to take care of the environment. .
THE EXPERIENCE
The young musicians showed their instruments to the students of the Copacabana educational unit during a workshop in La Paz so that they could see that it is possible to transform waste into art and sound, so they were encouraged to learn and create their own devices.
“It surprised me, it’s the first time in my life that I see instruments with recycled materials, it’s very beautiful, it’s been a good experience,” Bolivian student Jhosue Poma told EFE. .
The students took recycled wood, cans, bottle caps and disused buckets as raw material for their creations, which were guided by the whole team, in particular by William López, who is one of the leaders of the manufacture of hundreds of instruments for the orchestra.
Youth from both countries have turned buckets and lids into tambourines, used recycled wood and old x-rays to make drums, shaped pallet wood into a violin and even competed in a cello.
After giving free rein to their imagination, they test the new instruments by sharing a moment of music.
“Now they realized that gigantic things can be done with what they had in their hands,” López told EFE.
CONCERT IN A LANDFILL
As part of its activities, the orchestra also gave a concert at the municipal landfill of Saka Churu in La Paz in which the workers who collect the waste participated, who in addition to enjoying the music could be part of the recital at a given time.
Everyone was amazed to see the instruments and to listen to modern and traditional Paraguayan songs which even motivated them to dance.
Bolivia is the 51st country visited by this particular Paraguayan orchestra, which highlighted that a concert is given in a landfill, which is unprecedented in the country.
Yolande Salazar