When Mariel Chura joined a youth orchestra at age 14, she did not even know what a viola was. Seven years later, she loves the instrument, which has offered her an escape from the hardships of everyday life in Bolivia`s biggest coca-producing area. The Chulumani Youth Symphony Orchestra has helped teens avoid the usual pitfalls plaguing the region: drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and family drama, according to the group`s director and conductor Erik Castro. Instead, they learn the discipline of classical music, forge lasting friendships and dream of a future career in the arts. Bright-eyed and slender, Chura grew up picking coca leaves on her parents` land in the Cocayapu region, near Chulumani in the Yungas valley, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of the capital La Paz. When she received visitors on a suffocatingly hot and humid day, she took out her instrument and filled the family home with music, as her mother Lidia turned the pages of her sheet music. `I feel calm (playin
|