“The despair gripped me, like a nightmare had become my life,” said Ms. Ahmad, 26, a shy law student from Malaysia who claims she is innocent of charges of trying to smuggle cocaine on a flight from Caracas to Paris. “But when the music begins, I am lifted away from this place.” Ms. Ahmad plays violin and sings in the prison’s orchestra.
A rehearsal of an orchestra and its chorus, above, made up of inmates from the National Institute of Feminine Orientation, a women’s prison in Los Teques, Venezuela. The orchestra is modeled on a system that teaches classical music to poor children.
Yesterday’s NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/world/americas/23venezuela.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=amid+despair+in+a+venezuelan&st=nyt&oref=slogin—–