my extra luggage!

I write with just four days left in the US ... and I just sent out my blog announcement email, so if you're checking out my blog, hello!

While I was taking Suzuki pedagogy in San Diego, I got to experience some of the wonderful energy and generosity towards our Africa program that Liza has told me about. Because of the awesome work of Karla Holland-Moritz and Glen Campbell, the co-directors of the Strings by the Sea Institute, many musical families in San Diego know about our outreach program with Tanzanian kids. Throughout the week, we received donations of money, instruments, bows, music, and teaching supplies. It was truly exciting!

Of course, the whole thing about getting donations is that we have to find a way to physically GET them into Tanzania, where the kids need them. So Liza and I split up the biggest donations -- I took three full-size violins and one tiny violin; Liza took the full-size cello (!) -- into big boxes, and flew them home with us to Providence and Pittsburgh. I'll drive my little violins to New York, then they'll get checked (for a fee) through to Dubai and Nairobi, and then (hopefully) they'll survive the long, bumpy bus ride from Nairobi to Arusha.

If the instruments make it there unharmed, it'll be amazing.

All that being said: all you musical folks out there, if you've got instruments, bows, music, rosin, strings, teaching supplies, or money lying around unused at home ... please consider donating them to our Suzuki outreach program. If you/we can't afford the shipping this year, we can pick them up from you next summer.

(Liza will be glad I'm already putting in shameless plugs for us on the Internet.)

With love and thanks,
Ellen