At the Tuba City Boarding School I had two opposed sets of feelings. On the one hand I feared that we were being a burden to the teachers and the administration. On the other I felt that they all generally appreciative of our being there - especially the students. I had the pleasure of working in the middle school music classroom and not unlike the AHS band classes, the teacher understands that music should be fun. Like students all over, these kids are under a lot of stress to succeed. On top of that, outside of school, they live a life of what many of us would consider to be poverty. Yet in his classroom, Mr Q the music teacher has create a place where they have a little more freedom to be kids. Because of this there is a feeling of mutual respect between the teacher and students. I believe our presence there added to this environment of freedom and respect. The students were attentive when Andy and Misha played for them and they loved to show off their own skills on the guitar. I worked with a number of them and when the showed me they could play they e-string and b-string lesson if they day, I would give them a guitar pick. Later in the day a student came up to me at the beginning of a new class and said "I heard you were giving out picks" when I told him the condition he very quickly grabbed the guitar and mastered the six notes needed to earn his pick.
Mr Q and our host Eric Kee both indicated that these students would be remembering us forever. They won't remember our names our where we came from, but they will remember that we were there and we cared. I certainly hope this is true. I will certainly remember them.
Paul
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