No Woman, No Cry

I have been addicted to a Pandora station. No really, it's starting to become unhealthy- I'm pretty sure I know the words of every song that play- and if I don't, the pretty much get a thumbs down vote. I'm really surprised at how much music can affect my mood (not as much as weather, but a close second or third). I can put on headphones, turn up my music and jam out while working on projects or sing along with a song that makes me smile. As you can probably ascertain from our previous posts, both of us really enjoy working out- and we try to vary our workouts with things like masala bangrha, spinning and boxing. Perfect example- our spinning teacher loves using music to keep us motivated throughout her torturous 45-60 minute classes. I've taken to posting a "Lyric of the Day" on my twitter feed in whatever inspires me for that day. Music has a way of being cathartic, even if you're not actually creating anything- besides maybe an off-tune rendition of "chasing pavement" by adele ;-).

So it makes me think about how cultural music is and like my partner in crime mentioned earlier, dance is the same way. I'm really pumped to find out what kind of music makes Rwanda go 'round and the role it plays in their society. I wonder what they sing about, is there rap, soul, folk? I've never been one that is known to have an absolute ability for carrying a tune- but I'm excited to see what kind of music women sing to themselves when they walk around the village. I wonder what kind of music kids listen to while they do their homework, or what plays on the radio in the city.

I think as excited as I am to do really solid volunteer work in Rwanda, I am equally excited to experience a new culture- so different from my own. Sure I've traveled to the East coast from the Midwest which was certainly a kind of culture shock- but this is a brand new continent, with people who don't speak my language and -naive or not- I am psyched to experience the culture shock. Kind of like with electrical outlets, a shock is what we need to reboot. For me, rebooting is putting things in perspective, learning to live out loud and relearning what it is to feel like a participant in life, not a bystander.