Majestic Music: My Great Healer

Music, Art, Activism

The beginning of a Musical Dream

Living in my hometown Cartagena, Colombia I experienced a roller coaster of emotional distress from the abusive environment in which I was living in. Anguish and desperation for leaving the country in one way or the other was my truly goal. While my ideas of leaving were setting in my mind music was the only outlet of survival for me. It helped me to forget for a moment instances of constant retaliation for feeling different from anybody else.

At that time, I spent hours enclosed in my bedroom listening to the American music and the music of European artists too. They created a convulsion of emotions in my soul, in my heart and in my mind. I consumed that music in daily basis without forgetting my regular household duties. When I was doing the dishes, laundry, cooking or just sweeping the floors as was told to do so I was just singing my heart out loud in the entire house due to the feeling of freedom that music produced in me.

I really wanted to learn that rhythm, understand the lyrics in a foreign language, and feel the passion that these artists put into each interpretation, which inspired me to do the same. The simple thought of learning this cultural movement of singing, dancing, playing an instrument or having a fashion style it was mesmerizing to me. I knew that in order to understand that artistic movement I had to study English with diligence and discipline.

MUSIC, EASING THE PAIN

My exposure to international music started with the European artists coming from Italy, Spain, and France through the radio. Years before we moved to our own house, my father took us to live in a school building. He was working as the janitor of that building because he couldn’t afford a decent home at that moment to live in. He was allowed to live with his family on the empty abandoned classrooms available on the second floor.

These classrooms became our home for a long time while we find a new place to live. The owner let us live there for free as long as we kept the rest of the rooms and the corridors clean and shiny. The name of that school was colegio Fernandez Baena. The owner, Mr. Pacho Fernandez (RIP) was my father’s coach when he was into boxing. Trying to get a better way of life my father left boxing and worked as a free lance in any type of jobs. I remember when he worked at the dock Los Pegasos a very small port for boats and small ships that arrived to Cartagena city. My father carried out heavy wood, boxes and any type of products in exchange for some little money or for food. In the evenings when he arrived “home” he brought us pots with hot soups, rice, beans, and sometimes chicken or beef sautéed with potatoes. My mother then dished out the food to all of us her 7 children, equally. We devoured that food after a whole day with hunger without food, and we were also told there were not seconds.

Our lives were hard and difficult to sustain in those years. It was 1972 and we had just arrived from Medellin city. My father looked for better options of life constantly and would take advantage of any job opportunity offered either working at the dock or construction or anything in order to feed us all.
Sometimes when things were not going well he threatened my mother to leave that hot and steamy city of Cartagena and go back to Choco, his homeland.
This time my mother stood up by herself stating he could go back if he wanted to but without her and their children.
Searching for a better job my father finally got an opportunity to work at Colpuertos, the main seaport of the city of Cartagena. This new job became the lifetime job for my father, but he started from the lowest positions until getting promoted later on. Every early morning I heard my father turning on the radio to know if his title was called to show up to work.
The radio announcer will call out workers on behalf of Colpuertos seaport to announce how many people they would need for the day according to the titles.
If my father was called I would have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to help my mother to grind the corn in the mill to make arepas (patties) for his breakfast, which he would take to work.

I really hated it. Just getting up that early to grind corn, shaking chocolate with the batidor and making arepas was a torture for me, like a sacrifice I did not want to pay for.
Those circumstances created the moment for me to start listening to the radio and to make my labor more easy to endure. Listening to the music from the Italians and the Spaniards in those early mornings became an elixir to my soul.

Although they were Italians they sang in Spanish and the sweet melodies melted my heart. At nighttime I used to see my mom seated under a weak light bolt sewing the old ragged clothes of my father while listened to the Mexican music on a radio show called “Mexico canta”
Those moments introduced me to the classical soul Mexican music called Rancheras. I just loved it.

My mother spent hours listening to that music and I was just quiet in a corner of the corridor also listening and watching her.
Other times while doing dishes I listened to one of my favorite singers, Jeanette, with her popular song “Porque Te vas” (because you are leaving). Her soothing and melodic voice took me into the horizon looking at the large ships arriving into the city early morning. I dreamed of flying away and lose myself into a different world

MY FIRST TIME I MET A GUITAR

Music compensated the hurt in my life. When I wanted to scream my thoughts out loud to the world for the horrible situation that me and my family were put through for living in such conditions, music was my soothing outlet to calm my anxiety and the impotence of not being able to change our lives.

I don’t know how we were able to survive the humiliation and mockery of the students of our same age that knew we were living in that school building.
To soften my embarrassment I befriend a couple of students and one of them played the guitar. He was handsome and had black curly hair and toned skin. He was wearing black pants and a white shirt which he rolled the sleeves up his arms to make him more comfortable. I don’t remember his name but what I do remember that he played the guitar and he was the one who introduced me to this beautiful music instrument for the first time in my life. We learned the trending song of the moment, it was called “Mi guitarra”by Juan Pardo from Spain.

Some evening after class he met me and my sisters at the stairwell of the second floor where we lived and we all sang.
My life at that time was so miserable that having the chance of meeting somebody was marvelous. I learned the chorus of the song and sang it because it made me feel good and its lyrics touched my heart: “You would let me die so you can hear me cry and to watch me suffer you would smile at my song but you will never understand my guitar …”my guitar sang for me and cried too when I was sad, my guitar of splinters of love that somebody smashed on the sea..”
I have an illusion of seeing my friend every evening after school because he told me he was going to teach me how play the guitar and I was excited!
I could not hold my contentment which was superior than the fear I had for my father. I knew the time he would come home so my friend and I agreed to meet up early.
The stairwell was locked with a thick iron gate and we were not able to leave the building because my father locked the gate with a huge lock and only him and my mom had the key. My friend and I talked through the locked gate. I stood in the inside part of the stairwell and he stood outside. It was an awkward situation but we didn’t care. I told him I could sing and he didn’t believe me and although I was very nervous I sang some verses of the song. He told me that I had a good voice. We laughed and I felt special.

When we started singing his friends joined us and we all ended up singing and playing the guitar. I was mesmerized.
One day I asked him to let me touch the guitar but the gate was locked. So I passed my hands through the gate holes to feel that Spanish guitar for the first time, until my father found out and we were prohibited greeting, talking or mingling with any of those boys from that school again.
My world became upside down and more narrow after this experience. I had a deep cold feeling growing like a stone in the middle of my heart that was becoming black tinted every day and on. But when I listened to that song on mama’s old radio I forgot for a moment of all my struggles and tribulations and I sang with all my heart hoping to see this boy again.

DREAMING MY LIFE AWAY THOUGH MUSIC

I only felt sort of free when my father was not at home then I could breathe. I walked the long balcony of that second floor school where we lived back and forth letting the sun hit my face. I closed my eyes and I dreamed of flying my mind away and passing through the leaves of the rubber trees planted in the middle of the school backyard facing our floor.
I used to do this every afternoon after cleaning those long halls with asser and an old raggedy mop to make the floors shiny and bright as my father had taught me. That petroleum smell embedded in my brain and stated with me the whole day. Sometimes the simple smell of sawdust brought me back painful memories.
In the afternoons when I stood at the balcony I watched the guitar boy playing basketball with his friends at the school yard.
I was sad and ashamed at the same time. I felt I was not important to him anymore. I felt so ugly and insignificant to the rest of the world.

In the evenings it was just me, a little Black girl standing on the corner of the balcony of that school, alone with my own pain, my own fears, and my own sad life looking at the sun and dreaming my life away. When we finally got our own home we moved out from that school and another chapter of my life would begin.

This time I dreamed away by climbing to the roof of our house to see the stars real and present which inspired me in building up my dream by writing songs, playing guitar, and learning English to step into a new world called America.

And here I AM. Telling my story to the world in my own way, and with my own tools. I use my music, fashion, activism and cultural expression to bring awareness of the existence of my people, my dark skin people who still suffers the rigor of racism and marked discrimination.

I feel it is my mission to be me without expecting the approval of others to express my emotions and experiences through storytelling from my own point of view and from my own roots.

I know there is still too much to say but I believe the story needs to be told and the truth spread. So we all know that Colombia is actually a very diverse country with a mix of ethnicities, races, and cultures that make us unique.

It is important for people to also know that Colombia has Black people, because believe it or not I still get this misconception by some to believe that I am not Colombian because the color of my skin and race.

Therefore, I 'll continue with the narrative that needs to be told real and raw from my own perspective.

Stay tuned my warriors for more and remember to please keep loving what you do, keep living your truth, and keep celebrating life because God is good.

(Excerpt from CHAÉ autobiography)

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