Peter and the Wolf and Thanksgiving(click)

Jewish Percussionist Mr. Asaf Roth arrived together with famous female singer Min, to tell a story to the children. “Peter and The Wolf” a fable that is known to the world, may sometimes remain anonymous to the children here. Mr. Asaf would like to be the first one to expose the story to the young audience with his expertise in Marimba.

Lucky enough, I stayed with them together with the Israeli Ambassador and his staffs before the show started. “High So”, the Thai way to refer to High Society was what I felt from my conversation with them. Well of course, the functions they had been in were grand enough to accommodate these famous people, hotels, entrepreneurs gathering, huge performing hall, yet music and arts should really spread to every corner of the society! Glad that there was this connection between the Israeli Embassy and HDF, Mr. Asaf was able to perform in our little garden oppose to anywhere he has been in the four days of his stay in Bangkok.

It was a wonderful performance, besides the Mosquitoes snapping game in the garden, the children managed to concentrate and “sucked into” the imaginary world of Marimba. Each character from the story was represented into a specific tune. Birds, Peter, Wolf, Father, duck where composed into little tunes that were easy to be identified by the children, alongside with Min’s cheerful narration of the story.

(pic 3: Min the singer and I)

Being a percussionist myself, I was most drawn with Mr. Asaf's ability to attract the audience with only a whistle. The climax of the night is when all the children stood up on the stool, jumped around and danced along with his whistle. Of course that took quite a bit of warming up.

The Israeli TV crew came to report this event. Many other Israeli musicians and Israelis who live in Bangkok came to watch the performance. Since graduation in Norway, since leaving my chatty Arab Israeli roomie Lelia, with 3 other roommates, It was my first time listening to Hebrew. College sick.

Then, it was Thanksgiving!

Satisfying enough, I was invited to Father Joe’s house for a real American Style Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, ham, cranberries, you name it! The Thais are not really happy with the meal, they didn’t eat as much as I do! First western meal after a long time, together with white wine
and my favourite Strawberry, how can I complain?

The day was noted one of the most significant day after I met with Sister Joan. She lives in the slums and deals with the people’s everyday life problems. One of them is to support young mommies from the slum with Milk Powder. Immediately, I agreed to join her ‘Milk day’ the very next day.

(pic4: Far left, HDF's advisors John, Tom me and Kun Ratanna, Father Joe's secretary)