The honey-colored glow of the Sundown Saloon’s neon sign illuminated faces of rowdy youth out late on a Friday night, but 20-year-old Xenia Mathys’ eyes —not once drifting to the second-story window overlooking Pearl Street — were locked on her rambunctious class of Syrian refugees.
Since September, the University of Colorado sophomore and her family have been crafting a different sort of Friday night plan: lesson plans. Xenia along with her piano instructor mom, Elena, and CU computer engineering professor dad, Peter, teach music and computer programming classes to children 8- to 12-years-old living in a refugee camp near the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
The melodious chirps of a Skype call ring throughout a downtown Boulder office promptly at 11 p.m., and Xenia’s class of two girls and three boys pops onto the screen. Xenia greets the children by name, and translator Eyad Al-Khalidy, who is sitting with the kids in their 8 a.m. lesson, relays what everyone will be learning about today — an opera called “The Magic Flute.”
Xenia is Skyping from the Boulder headquarters of the refugee advocacy organization Humanwire while Elena sits nearby and offers teaching tips and Peter works on his programming lesson. Xenia heads home after her lesson is done around midnight, and then Elena takes over with a new class, sometimes teaching until 4 a.m.
“I don’t consider it humanitarian work,” Elena said. “It’s practically immoral for us not to do something about the refugee crisis. We live very comfortably. This is something we can do.”
With the help of YouTube and Al-Khalidy, Xenia splits the opera into sections the children listen to and then discuss. While the notes crescendo around the mostly barren, white office, the little boys on the computer screen rise from their seats, shut their eyes tight and let their hands dance through the air, mimicking a conductor.
.
