Katie's Camp History:
- 1997: A nine-day trek along the shores of Lake Michigan with my 6th grade class
- 1999: A weeklong stint in the woods with other West Michigan teenagers (i.e. church camp)
- 2009: A weeklong series of workshops in Son Jarocho music and culture, on a sweltering ranch in Southern Veracruz, Mexico.
After each of the three times I've been away to camp, I always came back 100% jazzed about what I felt I had "gone through." I would scrapbook heavily on my experiences, making hideous collages out of leaves and gum wrappers. I organized my post-camp penpal correspondence with a Jeffersonian seriousness. I made frequent announcements that I was permanently cured of all bug phobias.
But looking back, I notice that my camp fanaticism consistently boomed and faded. I never did follow through on those plans to escape into the Upper Peninsula and live in a burned-out tree (1997), nor did I keep any promises murmured into my hand-knotted rosary (which I made in the craft tent to match my friendship bracelets) to grow up a devout and yet totally rad Catholic (1999).
But now, this time, at 24 years old, I am hoping that my camp hysteria will stick. Unlike at previous camps, last week's Son Jarocho camp, called a "seminar",was designed to equip me with a new skill: to play the jarana and learn the art of singing versos jarochos (verses from Veracruz).
At the same time, our teachers made no attempt to hide that some brainwashing was desirable. The seminario was as much as about getting a grip on Son Jarocho music as it was about adopting the cultural values from which it emerged. This meant learning to:
- appreciate nature [i.e. sleep in tents, bathe in river, and enjoy sporadic access to handsoap]
- eat rustic food prepared by local women [I will never eat packaged tortillas again]
- respect elders [sitting for two hours to watch a man weave a fishnet is a-ok]
- turn off technology [at one point, getting mildly sick of the sound of my jarana, I snuck away to my tent to listen to some Hank Williams on my iPod. It seemed so out of place that I lasted through only two verses of "Your Cheatin' Heart"...and yeah, the lyrics got to me]
- slow the heck down [see photo]
Daniel from San Antonio, TX, with his constant companion
Above all, our teachers aimed to reform us into respectful musicians. Our group was a confident mix of cosmopolitan Chicanos from the U.S., well-traveled Latin Americans, and two Fulbright scholars. With all of us itching to learn, it quickly became apparent in our lessons that most of us were raised on an American model of showmanship: try hard, try loud, possibly make ass out of self, eventually develop your own style, and stand out. Our teachers, who are painfully aware of this mindset having toured the U.S. and Europe several times, reminded us that Son Jarocho emerged out of the collective creativity of groups, not individuals.
Nowhere was this more important than at the fandango, the communal jam session in which Son Jarocho is traditionally played and danced. Every night, when the ranch was covered in total darkness, we used our flashlights to find our way to the tarima, the wooden dance platform around which the fandango would unfold and escalate until 3 in the morning. After a long day of structured strumming in the sun, the fandango was our opportunity to let the music take over; to surround ourselves with the sounds of more experienced musicians from the towns nearby, and to let our skills take shape in the dark.
