I have to admit that I am an average Midwesterner – I drive to work, I drive to school, then I drive home. Sometimes I walk my dog to the park, though not often enough for his taste. I don’t really engage much within the community, and I can’t help but blame myself, and my culture for that. Community is a term that gets tossed around a lot, but we don’t see much of it exemplified around here. But without community, I became restless, looking for a place other than work and home to be a part of something.
Then I met with Ketu Oladuwa, of the Three Rivers Institute of Afrikan Arts & Culture (TRIAAC), and was introduced to the children who study there. These students range in age from six to 17, and they give up their Friday evenings and Saturday mornings in order to enhance their cultural understanding, and to learn something new and artistic that links them to a region half a world away, to ancestors who have passed centuries and millennia ago. Parents and other adults are invited to learn too; there is an adult drumming class that meets regularly.
Within this space, children grow and belong, and this division of TRIAAC is known as the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble (TRJE).
The Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble, located at 501 E. Brackenridge Street, at the intersection of Clay Street, is a non-profit organization that educates children of all races about Afrikan history and culture. On Friday nights, the older students learn Peace Studies while the younger children learn traditional art. After class is over, students break up into groups where they practice traditional West Afrikan drumming and dance.
The art of the Jenbe drum lies with its sense of community; literally, Jenbe means “everyone gather together”, and with every beat and with every dance move, these children are learning about the living past, and with each lesson learned, traditions from across the world carry on right here in Fort Wayne.
TRJE is not just for one race, or one culture, or one ethnicity; TRJE is open for everyone in the community to experience, and it is extraordinary, transforming kids into artists, tapping into their power as such. TRJE teaches discipline and acceptance through history lessons, art, music and dance. This is community.
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It gets very lonely here sometimes. Here is TRIAAC, the vision, the misssion, the praxis, the life of calling back into life the best that life has known so that the forward motion of the living is made measurably more resillient, more fulfilling, sweeter.
ReplyDeleteIt's such a time now. Sitting at this desk touching these keys, feeling the presence of rain and light on my skin, I am called back to Guinea and to Goree off the coast of Dakar, in Senegal. Goree from where so many Afrikans were taken to this world they call new. It wasn't new but very old; very, very old, and we Afrikans already had been here. Those lines connecting continents and people and the varied cultures they developed as families moved out of the Great Rift Valley to find new homes. Those lines ares palpibably present in this TRIAAC; this community space.
When Jesse came into this space the space and the people here welcomed her back home with openness and affection. Reading this, really reading and not skimming, let's me know that what is done here works for real people. No matter how alone this space may feel to me at this moment, this moment will pass. That deeper vibe that carries the energy resident here is Ancestral. The Ancestors don't sleep, they are ever watchful, ever present. Our work is to keep the ancient lines connected to the lines coming back to this world. Past, present and future are but moments holding experience. We must keep touching one another so that the change we are seeking becomes inevitable.