Concepción, we love you! Since our arrival in Chile, we have only received the warmest of welcomes. The teachers and administration of Instituto Chileno Norteamericano have taught us the difference between a Merlot and a Cabernet, shared some slang over parrillada, and coordinated  our first workshop with the incredible students of Colegio Espiritu Santo. We began the workshop by playing some of our favorite songs for the students followed by an English lesson using the lyrics of Big Rock Candy Mountains. Students were asked to create their own song using Big Rock’s structure, describe illustrations of the song’s parts, and sing along! We ended with a few more songs and a square dance out in the hallway. We appreciated the enthusiasm of Espiritu Santo’s students and their willingness to speak, play, and sing with us.

We’re excited to be leaving soon, next week, for the wonderful city of Concepcíon, Chile! There we’ll be spending two weeks working with students and teachers, performing concerts, and having a great time. See you soon!

Our classes with the students and teachers went really well. Brendan and Gillian broke the language barrier ice by reading some spanish aloud for them in their best gringo accents. This has proven to be an excellent way to demonstrate for the students that we understand the difficulty of speaking a foreign language, and that it’s okay to make mistakes. We also taught our first square dance here, which was a huge success. I figured it would have been very difficult to get a room full of high school students to dance, but as it turns out it is very typical for young people in Colombia to love dancing!

After our workshop for teachers our host David at the Binational Center surprised us with a concert from a Colombian Folk music quartet. They consisted of two bandolas (similar to a mandolin but with 10 strings ), a tiple (another traditional stringed instrument), and a guitar. They were amazing musicians and their original arrangements of traditional Colombian tunes blew us away. Afterwards we all had a chance to talk and play each others instruments. I want to learn the tiple!

The surprises continued when, as we entered the auditorium for our concert, we discovered the stage covered in hay bales. It looked, smelled and tasted like hay, and we later learned it was the work of David Fay, our wizard behind the big screen who has helped us put this whole trip together. Our concert went well and afterwards a bunch of people came on stage to try out our instruments and chat with us.

After the show is the after party, and so we were taken to a very local spot for dinner, essentially a barbeque on the sidewalk. We had a slew of empanadas, arepas, and plantains and left feeling very full. Gillian and Matt went to sleep, while our host David took Brendan and myself to a very local bar that has been around since he was a child known as “The Turkey.” We had barely sat down when not 1 but 2 people who had been at our concert congratulated us on our show! What a warm welcome. If that weren’t awesome enough, the bar was visited by a blind musician who belted out three beautiful mariachi-esque songs and drowned out the sounds of the whole bar.

The following day we visited the house of an English teacher from the Binational Center. Located in Mundo Nuevo (New World), a small collection of houses on an extremely steep mountain 15 minutes from downtown Periera, we were treated to agua panela and hot chocolate. We were lucky to step inside right as it started raining really heavily, enjoying our view of a bamboo forest from the kitchen.

Pereira treated us very well. Next stop, Manizales!

Ramblers being silly

Before we take off for Ecuador, I wanted to give you all some highlights of our amazing week in Colombia.

BUCARAMANGA

We began our journey in Bucaramanga, where we were met by our effervescent cultural co-ordinater from Bi-National Center, Juliana. We hit the ground running with a workshop at the Escuela Normal Superior with two big classes of enthusiastic (and energetic!) students. We worked off some of that energy by having them jump, walk, run, swim, drive, & ride around the verbs of motion in Old Joe Clark, & then learned some interesting noises for animals in both Colombia & the United States during Old MacDonald. I especially liked learning about the Chiguiro! Also, I’m always excited for the opportunity to showcase my super-realistic chicken sound, cultivated over many afternoons of serious practice as a child. In between the classes, we were offered a refreshing carbonated beverage called Malta that looked for all the world like cola, but tasted like a dead ringer for the milk in your bowl post-Lucky Charms. Brendan, Matt, Jordan, I were reminded of our time in Russia at the end of the class when all the kids rushed us for autographs & facebook contact info.

Jordan strikes a teacherly pose...

We were delighted to discover that the venue for our first public concert was the stunning Casa del Libro Total Museum & were well-received by the audience there. Our program ranged from rousing songs about Union scabbers (“Casey Jones”), to ballads about the hardships of growing up in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains (Ola Bella Reed’s “I’ve Endured” & Gillian Welch’s “Red Clay Halo”), to songs about the railroad (“John Henry”) and the range (“Home on the Range”) and heartache (“East Virginia”), to silly children’s songs (“The Fox”), and examples of “contemporary American folk music” when Brendan, Jordan, & I each take a turn playing original compositions. I also like to throw in a traditional Irish song called “The Blackbird,” which provides a good opportunity to introduce the idea of The United States as a nation of immigrants & talk about the relationship between some of the traditional music in America & that of the British Isles.

sound check at the museum

One of the main ideas behind this project is that, in addition to being a fun way for ESL students to learn through music, we feel that traditional American folk music is a terrific way to share another side of American culture that is perhaps not very well represented by our most pervasive cultural exports (Hollywood films, pop music, MTV, etc). The United States is a vast & complex nation filled with many different people with rich & varied heritage. The stories told in Folk songs are stories about real people, ordinary people, about hardship & joy & suffering & history, & we are as excited about sharing these narratives of American culture with other parts of the world as we are about learning more about the lives & history of our hosts & the students & teachers we encounter.

Matt & Gillian ramble through the streets of Bucaramanga

One of the ways that we like to explore new cultures is through food! Brendan in particular has made it his mission to taste every local specialty cuisine he encounters, which is how we came to sit around a small plastic table, contemplating a bag of fried ants. The ants were much larger than any I’d ever seen – each abdomen section about the size of a small pea – and (I can personally report) are crunchy, salty, & not altogether unpleasant save for the disturbingly tangible legs, which got stuck between my teeth.

After two wonderful, busy days that ended too soon, we packed our bags once again & caught a flight back to Bogota & then to Pereira (interesting fact: we will pass through the Bogota airport three times on this trip without ever actually seeing the capital city itself! Guess that means we’ll have to come back soon for a proper visit). Next update: Pereira!

revisiting a favorite Russian card game

morning run by the golden gate bridge

Last weekend, the Ramblers began trickling back into San Francisco to rehearse in preparation for our tour in South America. I came up from Los Angeles on Friday, Jordan returned from a camping trip in the East Bay Saturday, Matt flew in from Oklahoma Monday, & Brendan touched down from Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon! It’s the first time that we’ve all been together since our tour in Russia last summer & the reunion has been sweet indeed. Tomorrow morning we’ll catch an early flight to Bogata the adventure begins! We expect to be doing some blogging updates from the road, but I don’t know how regular our internet access will be, so I wanted to write a little post sharing some of the highlights of the past week in California.

Brendan, Matt, & Jordan

We’ve been working hard, logging several 9 hour days of solid rehearsal, learning lots of new material & lesson plans for the students we are *super* excited to meet in Peru, Colombia, & Ecuador. This time around, the U.S. State Department is organizing several large public concerts in addition to our schedule with the schools, so we’ve put together an entirely new program! Some of my favorites to learn have been John Henry, Red Clay Halo, Old Joe Clark, In the Pines, & Casey Jones.

lots of lyrics-learning...

In our spare time, we’ve managed to share several delicious meals (Jordan’s a wizard with a cast iron skillet) & visit the Sutro Baths, a 19th Century swimming facility that now lies in ruins on the Pacific Coast, not far from the house where we’ve been staying in Outer Richmond. When not making a hootenanny in the living room with the guys, I’ve also been learning cover song requests from a kickstarter campaign for my next solo album, locking myself in the (acoustically pleasing & quiet) bathroom to make iMovie recordings, & posting them on YouTube. One of the covers, a version of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Theme on harp, was picked up by the online gaming community & went viral, making this one of the most viewed bathrooms in San Francisco!

over 42,000 people have seen this bathroom!

We’ve already started getting some press coverage in South America, like this article: Ramblin’ Across the Andes.. Time to get back to packing – looking forward to sharing our stories from the road!

-Gillian

sorry, Pickles, you can't come...

The Ramblers are proud to announce our 2011 music tour in South America!

For the last 10 months we’ve hibernated and worked on our various projects and day jobs. But alas! In 3 weeks we are flying to Bogota for our month long reunion tour in South America!!!

With the help of David Fay at the U.S. Embassy in Peru, as well as countless teachers and organizers in South America, we have put together our tour through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru!

Our itinerary is as follows:

May 15th-17th: Bucaramanga, Colombia
May 18th-19th: Pereira, Colombia
May 20th-21st: Manizales, Colombia
May 22-24th: Quito, Ecuador
May 25th-27th: Cuenca, Ecuador
May 27th-29th: Guayaquil, Ecuador
May 30th-31st: Mancora, Peru
June 1st -2nd: Chiclayo, Peru
June 3rd-4th: Trujillo, Peru
June 4th-8th: Cuzco, Peru

In each of these towns we will be stopping to teach language classes and perform our songs, much like we did in Russia. This time around we’re a little better prepared and have created more developed lesson plans, pictures, and lyric books to pass out to our students. We’ll put those up on here soon.

Also, before we leave the States, Brendan and Gillian will come to San Francisco to stay with Jordan and Matt at their Beach Mansion! We’ll probably play a show for all our friends before we leave–look for video!

Keep your eyes peeled for updates as we go on our wild adventure!

Love,
!!The Ramblers!!

28 July 2010

American Musicians Ramble Across Russia

By David Fay
Special Correspondent

Moscow — Strumming and singing across southern Russia, a group of four American teachers has introduced traditional American folk music to thousands of Russian children.

“Traditional American folk music embodies an aspect of American culture which young Russians aren’t normally exposed to,” said Matthew Nelson of Oklahoma, one of the founders of the group that calls its project “Ramblin’ Across Russia: Accessing Language and Culture Through American Folk Music.”

“So much of what these kids know about our country comes from Hollywood films and MTV, and what we wanted to do was offer them a different perspective,” Nelson said.

Nelson spent the last year as a Fulbright Program English teaching assistant (ETA) at a university in the Russian far east city of Vladivostok. He traveled with the group in June 2010 to five cities — Elista, Rostov-on-Don, Gubkin, Ufa and Samara — where the U.S. State Department funds English-language camps for secondary school students through its English Access Microscholarship Program.

Elista is the capital of the Buddhist republic of Kalmykia and is famous for its temples, throat-singing and affinity for chess. Gubkin is a small mining city near the Ukrainian border. Ufa is the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, with large populations of Turkic-speaking Bashkirs and Tatars. Samara is a city of immense historical importance on the bank of the Volga River, where most Soviet government bodies were located during World War II.

MUSIC AS A TEACHER

Nelson, along with Brendan Mulvihill of Philadelphia, another Fulbright teaching assistant working in Tomsk in Siberia, came up with the idea for the group during the English teaching assistants’ program orientation in Moscow last fall.

“We were hanging out with a group of ETAs in Moscow. I had brought along my banjo and we were just playing songs and talking about our expectations for the upcoming year of teaching in Russia when the idea hit us,” Nelson said. “We realized that our interests, abilities and experience could be used to do something out of the ordinary, something that would truly fulfill the Fulbright organization’s mission of cultural exchange.”

Nelson and Mulvihill drafted lesson plans and content for the project, but knew they needed help. Mulvihill got in touch with Gillian Grassie, who was traveling through India and China with her harp, studying emerging music on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Nelson contacted Jordan Stern, a classmate from Lewis and Clark University in Portland, Oregon, who not only plays guitar and banjo, but also has experience working with youth in after-school programs and as a counselor at a drug rehabilitation center in San Francisco.

The Ramblers perform for an enthusiastic audience in Gubkin.

//

After months of planning and preparations, the group, calling themselves The Ramblers, assembled in Tomsk at the end of May to begin their journey.

The project was sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright organization and the English Language Office of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The goal was to create a fun and relaxed atmosphere where students could study English while experiencing a different part of American culture. The project, the group says, is the first of its kind and is unique in its marriage of English as a Second Language (ESL) techniques used in American schools with cultural exposure through music.

Their lessons and musical repertoire focused on traditional American folk music dating back to the first immigrants from Europe. “Through their lessons students learned about the diversity of cultures and musical traditions which came together to create American folk music; they learned about historically important events such as the Great Depression and the civil rights movement; and they learned about the lives of folk musicians, farmers, coal miners and train-hopping hobos,” Nelson said.

The students also had a unique opportunity to interact with native English speakers in an informal setting. Many of these camps are located in remote areas of Russia that rarely receive visitors from the United States. For many of the students, The Ramblers are the first Americans they’ve encountered in person.

“Interacting with the students is by far the best part of our tour,” Stern said. “Just chatting with the kids, playing games and acting silly — this is what it’s really all about. The kids really open up to us and the typical teacher-student relationship disappears, which I think makes it much more interesting and fun for everyone involved.”

The Ramblers worked with local teachers, both within the five camps and in the larger communities. Teachers observed and assisted the group during their lessons to see how they incorporated music and cultural content into the study of English. With a grant from the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the group also received help from more than 60 Russian alumni of various U.S. programs. The alumni will be involved in the compilation and promotion of a study package developed as a result of the project.

The Ramblers gave presentations to local teachers about American folk music and its use in teaching English, as well as other topics such as the role of Web 2.0 and other Internet resources in ESL education.

“For us, it’s about discovering small and unique pockets of Russian culture and seeing vast amounts of the gorgeous countryside through train windows,” Mulvihill said. “It’s so easy to visit the big, famous cities, so being able to see a different side of Russia has been a pleasure.”

Read more about The Ramblers’ project on their website, where you’ll find lesson plans and multimedia resources developed by the team for use by teachers, students and others interested in learning about American folk music or studying English.

You can also watch a video on their trip.

David Fay is a regional English language officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)

I am posting a slideshow which contains photos and audio clips from our project, which I think captures just how great this trip was. Also, on the audio and Video page there are clips of us playing some of the songs we performed at the different camps that you can download.

Once again, thank you to everyone who helped to make the Ramblin’ Across Russia project a huge success!!!

On June 24th we got to our final camp, about an hour outside of the city of Samara. Unlike the other camps, where the campers lived with their families and hung out with us for a few hours each day, this was straight up sleepaway summer camp, and we were with the young’uns 24/7!

"Rub-a-dub-dub! Thanks for the Grub!"

Our camp was located at a resort of sorts in the woods outside of Samara, which meant we shared the area with a bunch of other summer camps. We met kids from Muslim camp, Boxing camp, and general be silly-in-the-woods camp.

We first met our campers in the dining hall for breakfast. These kids were super excited to see us and very friendly, like all the other places we had visited. But something about being in the woods made it feel different, a little more loose and casual. Upon entering the cafeteria, all our campers looked at us and said “enjoy your meal!” Bewildered as to how to respond, we stared at each other blankly, until Brendan remembered how to say grace at American summer camps:

“Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub!”

Camp Cheers and Dusty Soccer

Sing-along!

After our breakfast, we spent the day working with each of us leading one group of kids. We taught them some songs, played games where they used their English vocabulary, and answered questions about the United States. We also each created a cheer to share with the other campers. My campers chose the name Boom Chika Boom, and of course we sang the Boom Chika Boom Cheer. Its a basic repeat-after-me kind of thing, and the kids did it in Opera Style, Sick Old Man style, and Dub Style! Classic summer camp. After our groups, we ate lunch with the kids. We took turns sitting at the different tables and getting to know them some more. I had campers guess my age and teach me how to say silly phrases in Russian, and Brendan turned his hot dog into a marionette of sorts. The campers were rolling over with laughter.

Jordan gets buried

After lunch the kids had free time. Some went to the river, and other played a big game of soccer with us on the all dirt soccer pitch. It was like playing in a sand storm, and after about five minutes we looked like we had rolled around in a big cinnamon shaker. All the more convenient, then, when we discovered that the running water at the camp was shut off for repairs! Our campers barely noticed, however, grabbing their towels and running to the river. These kids were really good at playing games like the throw-the-ball-around-a-lot, splash Matt as much as possible, and bury me in the sand! Needless to say it was blast.

Wet Hot Russian Summer

Campers hard at work.

The rest of the weekend pretty much followed suit, the focus of our efforts there mainly centered around hanging with the campers. We enjoyed dancing with them at the camp disco, playing big group games, and performing Lonesome Road Blues with them in front of all the other people staying there.While we got to know all the kids at our camps, this camp was different because we all lived in the same place. I think this was valuable because it gave us a common experience to relate with the campers about–the food in the cafeteria, the heat and dust, the dancing at the camp disco, etc.  This gave us a context for our conversations which I imagine helps with language retention. It also gave us more space to be casual with the kids and get to know them, and by the end we had inside jokes and a strong rapport with each other.

Presentation to local teachers

Teaching Teachers

Our stay in Samara also involved giving our presentation to a bunch of English teachers. We were able to share our curriculum with them, explain American folk music and what our trip was all about. We made them do some of the activities we did with the youth, including singing Down by The Bay and calling on them randomly to come up with verses. Our camp director, Yulia, was caught off guard when we called on her and she gave the most affirmative ‘no’ I’ve ever seen!

Teachers of Samara Region

Giving a presentation to a room full of adults was a new experience for me, and fun. We were really well respected and appreciated by them, and it felt good to know that some of our curriculum might pass on and be continued in other language education settings.

Overall, I think this camp worked best for our teaching model. This is mainly due to the fact that we lived with the campers and shared a whole experience with them for a few days. We were also much more practiced by this point with regards to how to teach our material. Being there gave Matt, Brendan and myself wild ideas of doing the trip again next summer, but spending more time in less places, running a whole camp for a week. I had forgotten how fun it is to be a summer camp counselor!!!

Group Foto!

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