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Updated
11-1-2000 This Page is devoted to Fan Input! Thanks To Frank Ciapanna For The New Fan Input Page Photo! Pictures, memorabillia, personal treasures, & oddities! We are looking for participation from ALL travellers! Click Here For All Previous Fan Input 1997-2000!
I recently had the extreme pleasure of meeting Rigoberto Chinchilla and his lovely wife in Dayton at the August 2000 concert. We had become friends with Rigo through the Travellers Mail list and I was quite excited to finally be meeting up with him. During the break between the two shows, Rigo was able to tell his story to Joe, Burleigh and Chris. You could tell how touched they were. At one point, Joe looked at me and said "this needs to go up on the site". I couldn't agree more. So, here it is for all of us to read, experience and be touched together. Billie............. Hope, Love & Desperation........... Holding On To Yesterday, an Ambrosia story...................
In 1980, I was 18 years old. A violent civil war explode in El Salvador. Two of my three best friends died in the streets while they were in the middle of a heavy fighting. After my father passed away and as my mother was about to die of cancer, I decided to leave the country and move to Costa Rica. Coming from a VERY poor family, things were not so easy. Struggling with poorness all my life, I barely got the money for the ticket. With only $30.00 dollars in my pocket, I had no other choice except to ask the United Nations for help. Before my trip to Costa Rica I took a cheap, old cassette with a variety of music containing two tracks that were very popular in my country "Holding on yesterday" and "Nice Nice Very Nice" that I recorded in front on the T.V. while watching an Ambrosia video and in front of the radio. (Yes "in front" meaning exactly that), so the recording was not very good quality. By the time I did the recordings, I DID NOT understand any words of the songs. But, I liked them so much even though I did not understand the words. I become a refugee in August of 1980. When my $30.00 expired I "moved" to a refugee camp. The desperation and poorness in those camps is something you would never want to experience. We were all there in the same situation, struggling to survive. I only took a small bag with me and the old cassette. By night we slept together in big groups in tents and by 8.30 p.m. they would send us to bed. Our only consolation was to be chatting each other inside a tent. We shared deeply our thoughts about being in this situation. One day I asked a United Nations lady to borrow a tape recorder. I decided to share with them my favorite song "Holding on yesterday". The group was about 15 people in that tent and they all liked it. Since no one understood the exact meaning of the words, we asked another lady to translate for us as a kind of joke. and she did it!!! When we just heard the meaning of the words we were in shock!!! Those words seem to be written for us. We miss our country, "we miss God's presence in our lives, we miss the old peace days in our country, we were missing our relatives and love ones, we were lonely. Suddenly about half people of the group begun to cry (including myself), the beautiful song with violins, the wonderful electric guitar and the organ suddenly became a HYMN for us in the tent. We miss the past and "Holding On To Yesterday" was our only happiness by that time. We heard our HYMN EVERY night. We cried many times, but that beautiful song helped everyone to have a little bit of happiness and hope for the future. After about two weeks I left the refugee camp, leaving behind the old cheap cassette with the people of the tent. I don't know how they are now; I don't even remember their names. But I KNOW that "Holding On To Yesterday" helped us get through those difficult moments. Twenty years after that experience, and just starting my Ph.D. in the USA I want to thank the group AMBROSIA. the authors of the song that gave us hope in that refugee camp. I still cry when I heard it.
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