Om Nelis - Masih Adakah Cinta [One Handed "Gitar" from Banggai, Central Sulawesi]

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! Negotiating the struggles of partial paralysis on his left side since a childhood illness, Om Nelis has never let his disability get between him and the music he loves. After teaching himself how to strum and fret his homemade “gitar” with one hand as a young man, his life completely changed. “I could never get girls before that!” he laughed. Hailing from the remote island of Peling in Sulawesi’s Banggai Archipelago, Om Nelis has spent his life in grueling work, often walking for days across his island selling farming tools or working in mines to support his family. He made this gitar out of local wood and fishing line when working with his sons breaking up rocks at a mining operation in nearby Taliabu island. For Om Nelis, music has provided him sweet solace all his life, a way to momentarily forget his struggles and hardships and lose himself in pure expression. When I hear his music (this song is a dangdut classic by Latief Khan called "Masihkah Ada Cinta" ("Is There Still Love?"), I feel equally transported: watching him smile as his grand-nephew dances behind him, it’s easy to feel that, just for a moment, everything is going to be okay. Hear and learn more about Om Nelis and his music at: https://www.auralarchipelago.com/aura...