Oh be careful little mind what you think
During the very ceremonious opening ceremonies on the first day of our work here, a woman got up on stage to lead the audience in singing.
Perhaps I'm spoiled in the quality of music I am privileged to listen to, but quite frankly, it was awful. It was so awful that I found it nearly impossible to sing along and found myself thinking "Even I could sing better than that."
Last night was the very ceremonious closing ceremony. We arrived on time, which turned out to be an hour before everyone else arrived. But apparently that was a good choice, because on the program, the translators were scheduled to sing. At least I had half an hour to remember where I put my singing voice. And half an hour to convince myself that if that other lady could sing, so could I. This was important to consider as I had been elected to sing with the microphone, since I actually knew the song we were going to sing.
Of course, I didn't know when we were scheduled to sing, nor what our cue was to start singing, nor when we were supposed to stop singing. I guess those sorts of things aren't as important in ceremonious ceremonies in Peru as they are in the States.
So immediately after I took a big bite off of the dinner plate before me, the small group of translators (suspiciously smaller than it had been all week) was called forward to sing. On the way up to the stage, one of the translators called a mini-conference to suggest that we sing a different song. Of course, the accompaniement needed to be told where the starting note should be, and that, too, I was elected to do... big bite of food or no.
But even though my mother always told me to never sing while eating, it all turned out well in the end. During the last chorus, laughter rippled through the crowd and before I could get too concerned about what off key note I had hit, I realized they had begun to play a slide show of pictures taken through the week on the wall behind me. Which is good news to me, because that means my singing wasn't so bad that it couldn't be ignored.
Perhaps I'm spoiled in the quality of music I am privileged to listen to, but quite frankly, it was awful. It was so awful that I found it nearly impossible to sing along and found myself thinking "Even I could sing better than that."
Last night was the very ceremonious closing ceremony. We arrived on time, which turned out to be an hour before everyone else arrived. But apparently that was a good choice, because on the program, the translators were scheduled to sing. At least I had half an hour to remember where I put my singing voice. And half an hour to convince myself that if that other lady could sing, so could I. This was important to consider as I had been elected to sing with the microphone, since I actually knew the song we were going to sing.
Of course, I didn't know when we were scheduled to sing, nor what our cue was to start singing, nor when we were supposed to stop singing. I guess those sorts of things aren't as important in ceremonious ceremonies in Peru as they are in the States.
So immediately after I took a big bite off of the dinner plate before me, the small group of translators (suspiciously smaller than it had been all week) was called forward to sing. On the way up to the stage, one of the translators called a mini-conference to suggest that we sing a different song. Of course, the accompaniement needed to be told where the starting note should be, and that, too, I was elected to do... big bite of food or no.
But even though my mother always told me to never sing while eating, it all turned out well in the end. During the last chorus, laughter rippled through the crowd and before I could get too concerned about what off key note I had hit, I realized they had begun to play a slide show of pictures taken through the week on the wall behind me. Which is good news to me, because that means my singing wasn't so bad that it couldn't be ignored.
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