Dorinda of São Tomé & Príncipe -- The Girl Who Sings the Same Part Again

Dorinda of São Tomé & Príncipe- The Girl Who Sings the Same Part Again

Age: 15     Region: African Continent

Dorinda has been singing the same eight seconds of a song for twenty-three minutes.

Her brother knows this because he has been counting.

"Dorinda."

She keeps singing.

"Dorinda."

Again.

"DORINDA."

She pulls out one earbud.

"What?"

"You got it right twenty minutes ago."

Dorinda considers this.

"I got it almost right."

"It sounds exactly the same."

This is why Dorinda's brother is not a singer.

Dorinda sings everywhere.

She sings while getting dressed. She sings while walking through the house. She sings while helping in the kitchen and occasionally while someone else is talking.

Her mother calls that interrupting.

Dorinda calls it providing background music.

But listening is just as important to Dorinda as singing.

She wears a small hearing device, and sometimes the world arrives with too many sounds competing for her attention at once. Music is different. With her earbuds, she can choose the sound. Isolate it. Follow it.

She listens to one phrase.

Stops.

Sings it.

Listens again.

Sometimes she removes one earbud so she can compare the voice in her head with the voice coming out of her mouth.

In.

Out.

Sing.

Listen.

Again.

Her brother calls this exhausting.

Dorinda calls it practice.

"Are you done yet?" he asks.

"No."

"You've been singing the same thing forever."

"Not forever."

"It feels like forever."

Dorinda smiles.

"Then I'm getting close."

Someday she wants to stand on a stage and hear an audience singing a song back to her—thousands of separate voices somehow becoming one.

She thinks that might be the most beautiful sound in the world.

Until then?

Eight seconds.

One more time.

Her Dream: To become a professional singer and someday hear an audience sing her songs back to her.

Her Wonder: "How can something you can't see—like music—make an entire room feel the same thing at once?"

Discover Ama’s complete story in Girls Wear Crowns: Dreams Without Limits.

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