Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 3 hours ago
A man with a guitar, children in tents, and the sounds of war around them. Ahmed Abu Amsha tells MO that teaching music is his way to bring hope and that by the time of publishing, he had been displaced 15 times.
Transcript
00:07So I take my guitar and move in the camp between the tents and I ask the family who has
00:14a talent, who wants to sing.
00:19A tent camp in Gaza's Khan Unis filled with children.
00:23They sit close, singing together. Some hesitant, some louder, all trying to find the same note.
00:30Off to one side, a man with a guitar strumming along. That's Ahmed Abu Amshah.
00:36A music teacher displaced multiple times by the war, using music to give children a brief escape from the constant
00:42sounds of bombing and drones.
00:46Right now, I'm in the middle of Gaza Strip. So all the kids right now in their tents and we
00:52don't have a connection there.
00:53This is the coffee shop, so I have to come here to have a connection, yeah.
00:57Before the war, his life looked very different. He taught at the American School of Gaza and ran his own
01:03studio from his home in Beit Hanun.
01:05Then came the war in October 2023.
01:12We are running from death. I displaced 15 times.
01:18From Rafa to Khan Unis, he and his wife carried what little they could.
01:23But one thing always came with them. Their instruments.
01:31This is the beach. Let me show you.
01:35And this is the camps. People live here and there.
01:39After we moved to Rafa, I was living in the camp and some of my friends told me,
01:46Hey Mr. Ahmed, can you play guitar?
01:50When I'm playing, like all the kids gather around me and play some music, like I forget for seconds this
01:59war and what we're suffering.
02:01In displacement inside tents like this one,
02:04Ehmag began to train a group of displaced children under his project, Gaza Bird Singing.
02:09Many of these kids had never formally learned music.
02:12Now, they're brought together to sing.
02:16I was founding the instruments falling the ground, broken, and then by some instruments from the people that sin, that
02:25sell, these instruments like wood for fire.
02:28I bring it and fix it and glue it.
02:33I was counting the sound of the bomb, one, two, three.
02:39And I think it's a propaganda about seizing fire.
02:42Until now, this is our life.
02:47Yeah, we will never lose. It will end.
02:54No.
Comments

Recommended