Sarah Alden

When we were in Punta Gorda, in Belize, the Embassy really wanted to try to match us with the right people and the right places. They'd never done a tour yet, so they were really fresh. Trying all kinds of things.

There was this man called Paul Nabore—who was part of the—is in the Garifuna community and is a Paranda musician. The Paranda music is like very spiritual music. And so he does it a lot for healing.

The cultural affairs officer said, "He played at my college and it was so amazing." And she said, "I thought I would maybe just try to get in touch with him and maybe you guys would like to meet him." And we're like, "Of course, we'd love to meet him."

And so we went over to his place and this old man comes out in high-top sneakers and kinda bleached out pants and a machete in his hands, and he hobbles out, and he's like, you know, I usually like more warning that I'm getting visitors.

He has these two wooden structures, and when we walked in there was just like drums that are hanging along the wall, wood slats and these crosses that are made out of cardboard were spray painted orange.

And what we were in was a healing building where people come and they spend days there and they have hammocks and they lay and there's music and they cook food. So it was really special that we got like this little glimpse of this. And we got to play him song, and then he proceeded to play us something because we wanted to hear it. And, he's not a rich man, and the guitar he has was like kind of a nail had been strapped around it for a capo. One of the pegs was missing so he had shoved plastic in there. And it worked, you know, but it was totally janky.

And then to tune his guitar, he had this little handheld voice recorder that had his songs on it, his songs he had played at some point. So he pushed play and it sounded horrible, it was just like

But he kept playing along with it to try to tune the guitar. This took maybe 20 minutes. He really wanted to sing us a song. The guitar never got in tune but he played us a song and it was just like—it was such a moment.

I know we're experiencing something right. He's 80 years old and been doing this his whole life and been a real spiritual leader and he's kinda the last there is of them. Nobody's taking after him, which is one of the most heartbreaking things, because the Garifuna people, I think, have one of the most precious histories and I don't know if it's gonna be remembered and carried on after some of the older generations go. So, getting the moment to be in his space and get to meet him is—I feel very fortunate.

Hi, this is Sarah Alden with the Hopping John String Band. Please join me with the Rhythm Road, American Music Abroad.