In the fall of 2009, I had the opportunity to volunteer in Uganda. My cousin, Renee Bach, founded a non-profit organization called Serving His Children (SHC) (www.servinghischildren.org), and I went to work with her for two months. Working with members of the small community of Masese, Uganda, we fed over nine hundred children twice each week. We cared for sick and malnourished children, made hospital visits, and led a daily Bible club.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this trip was using my music therapy training from Converse College (Spartanburg, SC) to connect with the people of Masese. I was able to speak only a few words of Luganda, the local language. Nevertheless, I was able to use music to build relationships with children in a matter of minutes. Music truly made the language barrier irrelevant. My music therapy training enabled me to spontaneously adapt songs to include words of Luganda and to simplify them for the children to follow and learn more easily.

The children of Masese loved singing and dancing with me. They were eager to learn all they could, and they delighted in sharing their own music with me in turn. Two adolescent girls in particular tutored me enthusiastically. On more than one occasion, they brought notebooks of handwritten songs from school to teach me, singing for me while I recorded their voices and asked questions about each song. They were thrilled at my interest, and we grew immensely close during our music sessions. My music therapy training enabled me to connect with the people of Uganda in ways that I wouldn’t have thought possible.

Elly MacPhail, Therapy Student, Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, U.S.A.