Warm Hands Greet a String Player on a Mission of Peace
For activist and violinist William Harvey, music breaks down cultural barriers in Cameroon
Dear Friends,
This is my first memory of Cameroon in the daytime: Seven of us cram into a taxi built for five and careen through crowded streets flooded from the morning’s downpour. I catch glimpses of vendors balancing everything from peppery prawns to shoes on their heads. We groove to the stereo playing hits from the music star P Square, and then arrive at a bar to enjoy huge glass bottles of ice-cold grapefruit soda, while the leader of the peace organization we will work with goes to the national police office to make sure our work in the country is approved. Eventually, we walk to a restaurant to discuss—over a lunch of peanut butter, spinach, chewy beef, and ground cornmeal—how to use music to bring peace to Cameroon and Nigeria.
We’ve come to Cameroon as representatives of Cultures in Harmony, the nonprofit organization I founded in response to the tragedy of 9/11. Since 2005, Cultures in Harmony has conducted 15 projects in ten countries with the goal of improving relations between the United States and the rest of the world through music.
Our project in Cameroon began with an e-mail I received on September 11, 2008. Ebere Valentine had heard a podcast about Cultures in Harmony at Idealist.org. In 2007, he founded the Cameroon Nigeria Youth Movement with the goal of helping those countries overcome their rancorous history. Ebere proposed a project to unite Cameroonians, Nigerians, and Americans in the common purpose of peace.
Over eight months, Ebere and I made plans. From a national field of applicants, Cultures in Harmony selected trombonist Catie Hickey, flutist Maggie Lauer, and violist Keith Sanders to participate. Since the project would not exist without the podcast created by Eric Hanser, one of our volunteers, we invited him to come and help out.
On a warm Sunday night in May 2009, the five of us arrive in Yaoundé, the capital, where Ebere and a dozen others greet us, taking pictures, helping with our luggage, and shaking our hands.
