Cameron Powers, musician and linguist, begins cross-cultural explorations early in life by mountaineering in the Peruvian Andes and running his "terrible tours" in Mexico and Peru. "Whatever you do, don't go there!" is the clue needed to choose an interesting destination.
Ultimately Cameron's calm but adventurous spirit led him to enter Baghdad while the city was still in flames following the 2003 bombing so that he might sing Iraqi love songs on the streets to demonstrate a very different methodology for cross-cultural relations. His current partner, Kristina Sophia, accompanied him.
Cameron's path carried him into Greece where he took up residence with his Greek girlfriend and dove into learning Greek language and music. Cameron had already acquired musical skills and language-learning skills from years of training in linguistics. HIs quest for fluency in both Spanish and the Inca language, Quechua, had carried him through many academic programs.
Returning to Colorado from Greece, he married his Greek girlfriend. They raised two children and formed bands which performed in local Greek, Persian and Arabic restaurants. Playing for belly dancers led Cameron into beginning the study of Egyptian music and Arabic language.
Cameron had been accompanied on two of his early trips to a remote Quechua village in Peru by his then girlfriend Lisa whose journal entries add feminine perspectives to the story. Cameron has featured the roles played by Lisa, Leda and Kristina since his preference was not so much to travel alone but rather to travel with a woman and enter into the structures of family life in not only Peru and Greece, but ultimately in Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
So many travel adventures feature lone males traveling into remote and sometimes dangerous areas of the world with a journalist's or even a soldier's attitude. Cameron's approach is very different. Always aspiring to learn languages and local love songs and finding the entry portals into the hearts of other cultures through endless musical performances, Cameron has seen the world from a close up and tender point of view.
Cameron came to believe that love without reservations or borders could be the magical ingredient for which so many travelers have sought without knowing how easily this can actually be achieved.
Love Without Borders is an adventure tale of endless affairs of love, sometimes sexual but more often attuned to whatever local family values prevail.
About the Author :
Cameron grew up with Mississippi River Blues Beginnings as a 14-year-old electric guitar-playing band member in St Louis, Missouri... Cameron was there on the dance floor while Ike and Tina Turner were presenting their first scorching hot music in the Chuck Berry friendly ecstasy of alcoholic rural party-times in the Afro-American dominated youth scene... Then on to the Tear-Soaked musical majesties of the Peruvian Andes... To the Time-stopping hesitation Black Hole musical mysteries of Athens, Greece... To the Divine Feminine Eternal Worship Dance in the Telepathically-Jeweled Musical Venues of Cairo, Amman and Damascus... To 70,000 miles of Touring the Amalgam Mix of the Cauldron called the USA... An amazing wild ride of a lifetime spent playing for people to dance! Fascination with Peruvian Indian peoples encountered on mountaineering expeditions led Cameron to spend 8 years going to and from Andean villages back in the 1960's and 70's. He immediately discovered the value of learning to play their music with them as an easy aid to bonding in trust and friendship. Cameron graduated with BA in Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder, with an emphasis on the study of Quechua, the language of the Incas. Cameron also received a fellowship to attend a two-month intensive immersion program in Quechua at Cornell University. It was there that he began to realize the value of being a musician as well as a linguist. Cameron also received a scholarship to work on a Doctoral program in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He continued to study the Inca language and began studies of the Tibetan language. In 1973 Cameron lived in Greece with the Papanastassiou family and studied Greek language and Greek music. Returning to Boulder, Colorado, Cameron performed Greek music and began the study of Arabic music with various local bands: "The Silk Route," "The Boulder Bouzouki Band," "Solspice," and "Sherefe." He created Musical Instruments, built Houses, and helped produce a Spanish Language Teaching Program in Boulder while raising his children. Cameron has a long association with Middle Eastern Music Camp which takes place every summer in Mendocino, California. After the events in New York on 9/11, a pall was cast on his role as an American musician playing Middle Eastern Music. "Terrorism" had somehow entered the music. Gigs were canceled; people became nervous about producing Middle Eastern Music-oriented shows. Knowing full well from his travels in the Middle East and from his extensive chain of friendships with Middle Eastern musicians that there is a warm reception available to anyone, including Americans, who wish to travel the Middle East, he realized the importance of continuing his "musical missions." Now back from additional travels in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, he is working to help American people understand the Arab psyche. Cameron's wife, Kristina Sophia, has been a big part of all this work. Her beautiful singing voice, percussion skills and endless cheerful companionship both at home and on the road have helped make this creativity fun and possible. The 501c3 non-profit organization, Musical Missions of Peace, now better known as "Musical Ambassadors of Peace," has been built around his and Kristina's international work. Through the Musical Ambassador programs founded by Musical Missions of Peace help has been provided to other American musicians who have traveled and performed in Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan and Indonesia. Through the Iraqi Refugee program support has also been provided for Iraqi refugee musicians in Syria to facilitate the teaching of traditional Iraqi music to young Iraqi children.
Review :
Maybe your home is glass in terms of transparency, but not fragility. And fragility ain't necessarily the same as vulnerability. I really dig this excerpt. And forgot to tell you weeks ago that your book title is spot on!
WooHoo!
Amazing!
