Page 10
Street Roots • May 12-18, 2017
New s
PARFAIT, from page 9
but after that, he would be on his own.
“I came, hit the ground running, looking
for scholarships, looking for all kinds of
jobs,” he said.
His brother, majoring in computer
engineering, showed him the ropes and
helped him find scholarships.
Many international students major in
technical trades because company
sponsorship is more likely. Like his older
brother and his father before him, Parfait
declared his major in engineering. A couple
years later, his younger brother would do
the same.
His first campus job was from 2 to 4 a.m.
at the school’s library. From there, he
worked any and every campus job he could
get. He refereed soccer games, worked in
the computer labs and as a teacher’s
assistant. He even became a resident
manager so that he could get into student
housing.
He remembers approaching teachers
when he didn’t have enough money to
register, telling them that he would be
attending their class and turning in
homework if they would allow him to do so,
promising to pay for the credits before the
end of the term.
“It was some of the most humbling times
in my life,” he said. “It was hardest when it
was a teacher you’ve already taken once -
you’re like, oh no, I can’t go and talk to this
teacher again.”
The church he was attending in those
days, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship in
Tualatin, helped pay his tuition a couple of
times when he couldn’t come up with all the
funds.
He also received scholarship money
through PSU’s International Cultural
Service Program. In exchange for tuition, he
gave 90 hours’ worth of cultural
presentations at local grade schools and
retirement homes each academic year. The
idea was to bridge the gap between
Oregonians and different cultures.
His parents sent him artifacts that he
would show to often distracted and bored
schoolchildren while he clicked through a
PowerPoint presentation about Senegal and
Benin.
Each quarter, he took a full credit load,
sometimes more. Because he was still
grappling with English, he would record
every lecture and then listen to it repeatedly
later in the day, between classes and odd
jobs, to decipher what was said.
He said those days he drank so much
coffee that caffeine doesn’t affect him
anymore.
Meanwhile, he was also adjusting to
American culture. Once again, he found
himself being characterized by other
students as something he was not.
“All of them assumed that because I grew
up in Africa, I probably never saw a car, was
never on a plane. People asking me, ‘How in
the world did you get to America? Did you
swim?’ Literally! I was asked questions like
that,” he said.
“I’d play dumb with some people and just
see how deeply stupid of a conversation we
could have. I would say, ‘Yeah, it took me
his home
studio in
P H O T O BY
JOSEPH
QLOOE '
Portland Concerts in the Park
about a month to swim here.’”
He had a hard time making sense of the
college drinking culture, and as a Christian,
there were aspects of campus life he said he
wouldn’t allow himself to take part in.
The U.S. was fast paced, and all the food
tasted like it was doused in sugar. He
noticed a tension between religious groups
that he hadn’t experienced growing up.
He began to feel self-righteous,
wondering, “What’s wrong with these
people?”
He continued to vent through music,
spending hours in his dorm room writing
French lyrics. Now that he had a computer,
for the first time in his life, he could
produce his own beats.
“As I was writing songs to process my
own experience, I started to realize that I
was being a hypocrite,” he said. “Because in
some cases, people didn’t give me the
benefit of the doubt, that I could have had
rich experiences, that I could actually be an
intelligent person behind a funny accent - I
realized I was doing exactly the same thing
as I was judging cultural traits that are
foreign to what I am used to.”
In 2009, he released his first album,
composed of French rap songs he had
written in his early days at the university.
The album is aptly titled “Bonjour Babylon.”
Understanding French is not a
prerequisite to enjoying this album.
At the urging of a friend one Sunday
afternoon following church, Parfait picked
up a guitar at Trade Up Music. It was a
Hohner acoustic.
He taught himself to play the basic
chords and began to transform some of his
raps into song. Eventually, he began to play
his more church-appropriate tunes before
his congregation, where he was met with
resounding support.
He was about two years into his
undergraduate degree when, one day, as he
was preparing to give yet another one of his
PowerPoint presentations on West Africa,
he decided to ditch the slide show.
This time, all he brought was his guitar.
Instead of lecturing the French class at
Lake Oswego’s Lakeridge High School that
day, he sang his songs and talked to the
students about why he wrote them.
“The response from the audience was
something different,” he said. “They were
attentive. I knew I was onto something.”
He eventually changed his college major
to business, and then went on to earn a
master’s degree in conflict resolution, also
from Portland State University.
In the course of his studies, he began to
research empathy, realizing it was the
missing link that, if achieved by opposing
sides, could solve all conflicts.
Jules explained the way he saw his little
brother adapt as the family moved from
country to country, and as they eventually
found themselves in Portland, was different
than the way others might adapt. Rather
than gravitating toward people of the same
background or keeping to himself, he said
Parfait always sought to find similarities he
could use to bring people from different
backgrounds together.
Figuring out how to teach empathy while
staying true to himself became Parfait’s
personal mission. He knew storytelling
helped to build empathy, and he realized
that the best reactions came when the
stories were told through music.
“In academia, music is looked at as its
own language,” he said. “When you put
monitors on people’s brains and you’re
looking at their responses as they are
listening to music, it actually triggers a side
of the brain that is slightly different than
when you are speaking their language. It
triggers emotion, affects moods - if you are
intentional about the composition, if the
goal is to get them contemplative and
introspective, you can achieve that.”
He wrote his thesis on story- and song-
centered pedagogy. By the time he’d
finished, he had created an educational
framework that uses songs, stories and
reflective questioning to increase empathy
with an audience.
Since graduating in 2013, he’s used this
interactive format to teach empathy at
hundreds of workshops in various contexts,
from high school assemblies and corporate
functions to community events. In February,
he taught schoolteachers in Haiti through
song and music.
“A large part of Parfait is social justice
and community awareness and community
building, and that is very prevalent in his
songs,” said his longtime friend and mentor,
local jazz musician Dominic Castillo. “There
is no divide between him as a community
member and him as a musician and an
artist. They don’t exist in separate boxes.”
Six years ago, Parfait married his college
sweetheart, Karima, who now works as a
naturopath for Central City Concern. Since
then, the couple have added two boys,
Aushti and Nouri, to their family.
In addition to his musical pursuits, Parfait
works full time as a project manager for
Rubicon, and education-focused tech
company.
It was through his employer’s foundation
arm that he was able to teach his empathy
workshop in Haiti. After his first visit to the
earthquake ravaged island in 2010, he wrote
a song inspired by a little girl he met who
had asked him to take her with him when he
left. It’s called “Nou Tout Haitiens,” or “We
are all Haitians.”
See PARFAIT, page 1 1
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