and ford >> kroft: the thing that strikes you first about tehran is that it defies expectation. it is a sprawling, modern city with lots of well-to-do, well- educated people. with the west and iran locked in serious negotiations about a permanent deal to curb their nuclear program in exchange for relief from years of economic sanctions, we thought it was a perfect time to see what was going on there for ourselves. >> america? >> kroft: yes. >> pelley: last december marked the 150th anniversary of the completion of the capitol dome. it is hard to imagine america without this crowning

achievement, but when you hear the story of how it was created, it becomes hard to imagine that our dome exists at all. >> this is the level that we go outside. >> pelley: wow. what a beautiful view. tonight, you are going to see it like you have never seen it before. >> simon: garbage is the only crop in cateura-- ten cents for a pound of plastic, five cents for a pound of cardboard. you will be amazed at what else people are doing here with this trash. ♪ ♪ this is the recycled orchestra of cateura. the violins are fashioned from oven trays. the saxophones and trumpets are made from old drainpipes.

the keys are from coins and bottle caps. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." >> good evening. at&t is buying tv for $95 million share, adding 20 million subscribers. a coffee fungus has already kazed $1 billion in damage in latin america. and swiss voters today rejected a $25 minimum wageful i'm jeff glor, cbs news. we asked people a question,

how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last.

i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪ [ male announcer ] haagen-dazs gelato. inspired by italy and made like no other. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol.

i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. ♪ >> kroft: for the past 35 years, the united states and iran have been locked in a hostile relationship marked by diplomatic isolation, military threats, and deep mutual mistrust. then, last november, something

happened. amid rising tensions in the middle east, and the possibility of a military attack against iran's nuclear facilities, the two sides stepped back and signed what amounted to a temporary truce. iran agreed to freeze development of its nuclear capability, and, in exchange, the u.s. and five world powers promised iran some relief from economic sanctions. a permanent deal is still under negotiation. the primary catalyst was the election last year of iranian president hassan rouhani, a reform-minded cleric who won a surprising and convincing victory by promising to improve the economy and end iran's international isolation. clearly, something is going on in tehran, and we wanted to see it firsthand. last month, we were granted visas and packed our bags for an eight-day visit. the thing that strikes you most about tehran is that it defies expectation. it's a sprawling, modern city

with 12 million people, and most of them are offended by the perceived image of their country as a hostile, backward, dangerous place filled with terrorists, a conservative islamic police state ruled by a religious theocracy. it's much more complicated than that. iran is one of the wealthiest, best educated, most sophisticated countries in the middle east. and most people here are eager to end their political and economic isolation, if their government can work out a deal. >> mohammad nahavandian: there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation about iran. >> kroft: dr. mohammad nahavandian speaks from experience, having spent years in the united states getting a ph.d. in economics from george washington university. today, he is chief of staff to president hassan rouhani, and considered by some to be the second most powerful person in the new government, one that would like america to forget about the rantings of former president mahmoud ahmadinejad and try a different approach

that does not lead to military confrontation and war. >> nahavandian: now, we are opening a new chapter, a chapter of building trust. now that both sides have recognized that this cannot and should not continue, the best way is to come in to some agreement. and instead of imposing economic sanctions, try to utilize economic relations to overcome political disagreement. >> kroft: in iran, navahandian and his boss, president rouhani, are both pragmatic moderates less concerned about ideology than fixing the sick iranian economy, which was the mandate from voters. to do it, rouhani has to ease the economic sanctions that have been imposed by the u.s. and europe as punishment for pursuing a nuclear program. the country's limited ability to export oil, import goods, and

participate in the international banking system are largely responsible for high unemployment and an inflation rate of 30%. what about the sanctions? how difficult is the economy? >> translator: she hopes that it gets better, while they're negotiating. and he wants things to get cheaper. >> kroft: cheaper. while the sanctions and their effects have imposed considerable pain and hardship on many iranians, we saw no evidence that the economy was on the verge of collapse. the bazaars were filled with goods and people were shopping. >> said fateh: it is serious, but, as we've said, it hasn't really brought iran onto the knee. >> kroft: said fateh and his son abdollah are part of the business class that president rouhani is trying to empower by privatizing state-owned industry, increasing competition, and opening up iran to the world. they say the sanctions have done enough harm to get iran to the bargaining table, but not enough to force the iranians into a

final deal they don't want to make. do you think that iran is willing to make concessions on its nuclear program? >> said fateh: it depends on the concessions, doesn't it? to stop it totally, i doubt it. but to... to reach some middle grounds, most probably. >> kroft: the fatehs gave up a comfortable expatriate lifestyle in the states more than a decade ago to return here and become pioneers in the iranian internet. their company, pars online, is now one of the country's largest service providers, but not as large as they would like it to be. how do you run an internet company and build an internet company when there are sanctions in place? >> abdollah fateh: everything is possible, but it's just a bit more expensive and a bit longer to bring everything... >> said fateh: you can... you can get practically anything you want. >> abdollah fateh: i'm expecting that the new google glass product that's coming out, hopefully... probably, within the next month or two, you'll be able to find it in iran. >> kroft: in northern tehran, we

found shopping malls that would not be out of place on rodeo drive in beverly hills. they cater to the country's elite, many who made their fortunes through close ties to the government, and even the clergy. we saw french perfume, designer clothes, and brand names like gopro, samsung, and apple. not far away was a showroom for bmws and porsches. and how does it get here? >> said fateh: well, i'm sure they have ways to get things in through various borders, i presume. >> kroft: it was clear said had no interest in discussing the details, and when we asked him about internal opposition to the negotiations with the u.s., his son abdollah suggested in farsi that his father not respond. i mean, there are people in this country and people outside the country who really don't want to see this happen. >> said fateh: well, no, why not? you... you do see some newspaper articles or talks.

but whether or not that's a reality or... or not is different issue. >> kroft: during our time in tehran, we were able to travel around without government supervision, and free to speak with anyone who would talk to us about what was going on. it wasn't always easy to get answers. >> there're people... many people are speak english in bazaar, but no, no, none of them, none of them talks about politics. >> kroft: you don't want to talk about politics. >> no, i don't want to talk politics. >> kroft: nobody wants to talk about p... >> where are you from? >> kroft: the united states. what do you think of president rouhani? >> he's better. he's better. that's it. >> kroft: people in tehran are very careful about what they say, which makes it difficult to figure out what's going on, even for iranians. while there is wide popular support for president rouhani's policies of moderation and engagement, there is also subterranean opposition from hard-line rivals who have benefited from the status quo,

including powerful forces that are either invisible or inaccessible to westerners. one of them is the revolutionary guard, iran's elite military and security force that's charged with protecting the revolution from internal and external threats. but the guard is more than that- - it is a powerful political and economic force with tentacles in industries like construction, telecommunications, and banking. they can be seen occasionally in uniform, marching in patriotic parades. but the guard operates mostly in secret, a shadowy brotherhood that, among other things, arms and trains iran's proxy armies like hezbollah in its fight against israel. they do not give interviews to western journalists, but they've been critical of rouhani in the iranian press. other hard-liners have held demonstrations that oppose any iranian concessions in negotiations with the u.s.

we asked mohammed nahavandian, the president's chief of staff, about it and he answered very carefully. the revolutionary guard is very much opposed to any kind of a deal, opposed even to the negotiations. true? >> nahavandian: i think that generalization is not correct. >> kroft: my understanding is that this is not necessarily a smooth road for president rouhani, in terms of mustering support on all the things that he wanted to do when he ran for office. >> nahavandian: isn't that the definition of a democratic election? ( laughter ) >> kroft: that seems to be an acknowledgement that there are people here that are giving you a hard time. >> nahavandian: the elected president is being accepted and supported by the supreme leader. so the whole system are supporting the elected

president, and that is the case. >> kroft: president rouhani was elected to run the iranian government, but it's his boss, the supreme leader, ayatollah khamanei, who actually runs the country and has the last word. he doesn't give interviews to western journalists, either. but he has no problem communicating with his followers through state-run media and the local mosques. if you want to know what's on the ayatollah's mind, and we did, you can go to places like shahr-e-rey, a religiously conservative working-class suburb on the southern outskirts of tehran. we were there during and after friday prayers, and our presence caused quite a stir. >> where are you from? >> kroft: we're from the united states. >> what? >> kroft: from america. >> america? >> what's your country? >> kroft: hmm? >> what's your... >> america, america. >> america? >> kroft: yes. >> oh, my god. ( laughter ) it is... >> kroft: what, you've never seen an american? >> no. >> no. >> kroft: no?

we're journalists. word spread quickly, and within a few minutes, we were surrounded by a crowd of people eager to share three decades worth of pent-up feelings about the united states, as told to them by the supreme leader. >> negotiating is good. but what is bad is that america is doing very bad things. after negotiating, obama is telling... the option of army is on the table. it is not... is not a good thing. >> ( translated ): what we want is not to impose anything to us. nothing should be imposed by the u.s. to us. >> translator: this lady is also saying that our supreme leader said to the government people that go and make peace, make that agreement. but i'm not very optimistic about this u.s. policies. >> kroft: we listened to their now familiar grievances, beginning in 1953 when a u.s.- backed coup brought down a popular democratic government

and replaced it with the dreaded shah, all the way into the 1980s and the bloody eight-year war with iraq, in which the u.s. favored saddam hussein. >> nahavandian: starting from foreign policy, you cannot find friends in iran. but if you start from economics, from technological cooperation, from cultural relations, there can be some common ground. >> kroft: the people in the united states also have grievances-- certainly, the hostage crisis, supporting some groups like hezbollah that the u.s. considers to be terrorist groups, their refusal to acknowledge israel's right for existence-- are all issues of importance to american foreign policy. >> nahavandian: for so long, those points of disagreement has been the focus of all the attention.

of course, there are some points of disagreement. you don't negotiate if you do not have disagreements. you negotiate to turn disagreements to agreements. >> kroft: right now, those disagreements are scattered across the desert hundreds of miles from tehran, where, for decades, iranians have been aggressively developing a nuclear program they insist is for peaceful purposes, all the while acquiring the technology to enrich uranium to bomb-grade quality. there are people in the international community, and scientists in the united states, who say, "there would only be one reason why iran would have all these centrifuges, and that would be to build a nuclear device." >> nahavandian: it was not. for iran, it was just another example of technological advancement.

when this was faced by military threats, people took it as a... an issue of national pride. >> kroft: scientific accomplishments are a huge part of iran's self-image. in spite of its isolation, it has launched a satellite and cloned a goat. just a few days ago, the ayatollah unveiled iran's own copy of a u.s. surveillance drone. but, for whatever it's worth, no one we talked to in tehran believes the country wants to build a nuclear bomb. how do they feel about nuclear weapons? >> ( translated ): there are no nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons are forbidden. >> kroft: they say it's all spelled-out on the ayatollah's website. but there's no shortage of skeptics, which include israel, saudi arabia, and members of congress who would like very much to scuttle any deal. this is a tricky negotiation. >> nahavandian: yes.

>> kroft: there is some political risk involved on both sides. >> nahavandian: you are exactly right on that. because, for all these long years of distance and not having a positive and constructive dialogue, there has been a lot of suspicion. so both sides, because of that suspicion, have a hard time convincing others. but that is the nature of diplomacy. >> kroft: the white house has said there is only a 50/50 chance that the negotiations will succeed. but whatever happens, this will be remembered as a moment of opportunity, lost or seized-- the first one in a long time, and most people in tehran seem ready to take the chance. >> for a video diary of our

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>> pelley: over the last few months, the scaffolding came down from the washington monument, and last week, the obelisk reopened on the national mall. the 555-foot tower was closed for repairs after being shaken in an earthquake in 2011. well, soon, another symbol of the nation will be crawling with repair crews. scaffolding will be rising on a seriously worn-out capitol dome. last december marked the 150th anniversary of the dome's completion. it's hard to imagine america without this crowning achievement, but when you hear the story of how it was created,

it becomes hard to imagine that our dome exists at all. we were given amazing access to the dome when we first reported this story last year, giving us a chance to see it as we've never seen it before. george washington knew what he wanted-- a building so grand that no one could ever move the capitol from his city. he'd still find it on jenkins hill, where he laid the cornerstone. and he might admire the dome which was built later, for what it overcame. built by men who despised each other, topped by a statue of freedom cast by a slave, through war and rivalry, the dome kept rising. and that's american character that runs deep below the skin. >> stephen ayers: this is where we go from that beautifully richly decorated capitol to the battleship gray industrial parts of the capitol building.

>> pelley: stephen ayers holds the title architect of the capitol. he takes care of the dome and everything below. this is all original? it's all 150 years old? >> ayers: yes, it is. >> pelley: all this was designed by ayers' predecessor, thomas walter, who proposed a dome no one had asked for. this is the capitol that george washington knew, and it's still the center of the capitol building today. walter won a competition to expand the house and senate sides to hold all of the politicians coming in from the new states. but then, walter thought the original dome looked too small, so he drew another. >> ayers: he posted it on the wall in his office. and members of congress would often come by and see that, and it just stuck immediately. didn't even have a cost estimate. didn't know how they were going to construct it, how they were going to build it, and how they were going to design it. yet, it was so beautiful and so wonderful, everyone just knew

immediately that they had to do it. >> pelley: walter drafted it after the great marble domes he'd seen in europe only to discover that the building couldn't support the weight. so he conjured an illusion. everything-- every column, every ornament-- is cast iron painted to look like stone. the weight was cut in half. wow! >> ayers: this is from 1863. you can see it's signed by thomas ustick walter. >> pelley: his drawing in the archive reveals there are two domes, an inner dome with a ceiling painted with an "apotheosis of george washington" ascending into heaven, and the outer dome ascending into the sky. >> ayers: we are climbing atop this inner dome, the "apotheosis of washington" fresco by constantino brumidi. >> pelley: that's right below us. >> ayers: yes. >> pelley: we're on top of that. >> ayers: that's exactly right, and this is the level that we go outside. >> pelley: this is the top.

>> ayers: this is the top. >> pelley: wow. what a beautiful view. it's about 30 stories, and because d.c. outlawed skyscrapers back in 1910, you can see forever. for the record, the washington monument is nearly twice as tall. so there's the national mall. >> ayers: you can see the potomac river and anacostia rivers coming together. >> pelley: steven, what did it mean to have this dome completed very near the end of the civil war? >> ayers: to me, it's a measure of our endurance, of our will to succeed, and our will to get it done, and our will to stay together as a country. >> pelley: it took enormous will. in congress, the first vote on the dome passed 71 to 70. a critic called it "a great mistake." and then came the civil war-- not the war you're expecting.

this was the war between the greats. the brilliant architect vs. the genius in charge of construction, army captain montgomery meigs. >> bill allen: he was incredibly honest, very efficient. >> pelley: bill allen was the historian in the office of the architect who told us that, despite meigs' virtues, he was obsessed with winning fame. >> allen: and the way that he chose to do this was to put his name in every place that it occurred to him where it could go. >> pelley: it went on the bricks of the d.c. aqueduct and on its stairs. m.c. meigs even etched his name on copper plates and laid them between the stones of the capitol. >> allen: in case 2,000 to 3,000 years later, that capitol became an archeological site. the archeologists would discover these plates and know exactly who built the capitol extension.

>> pelley: but the last straw came when meigs claimed authorship of the dome, signing his name to walter's drawings. the two men stopped talking and raised their pens like swords. >> allen: the letters are well worth reading. they are... they are amazing. >> pelley: we found them in the archive. meigs-- "you are welcome to assume the authorship of the pyramids of egypt. you have no right to the new dome." walter-- "if i am not the architect of the new dome, i would like to know who is." "i shall be glad never to receive another line from you." meigs-- "i have the honor to inform you that your services are dispensed with..." he fired him. >> allen: he tried to. walter, very calmly, writes back and says, "i would like to remind you that my appointment is at the pleasure of the president of the united states." >> pelley: the work slowed but planning continued, including a debate about what to put on top. >> lonnie bunch: they decided that they would have a statue that would speak of freedom. >> pelley: historian lonnie

bunch researched the project for congress. >> bunch: and they went to a young american in rome who was studying, and he came up with this idea to create a statue that had the look of america. >> pelley: describe her to me, in your minds eye. >> bunch: well, she is this beautiful woman who has some native american features, is capped by this beautiful headdress as reminder that this is a country that was different because it was built, first and foremost, around the issue of freedom. >> pelley: and one of the men instrumental in casting the statue was a slave named philip reid. >> bunch: philip reid was an enslaved man who was owned by someone who owned a foundry here in washington. and that when the statue, initially plaster, came back to the united states, there was a concern about how do you take it apart? philip was really one of the people who knew how to do this,

and he came up with the idea of how to separate the model, how to then cast the model. he led the people who were making the cast of the bronze statue. >> pelley: but freedom would be grounded in 1861 when the real civil war began. montgomery meigs left to become quartermaster general, supplying the army with all that it needed for victory. but all the money for construction was diverted to the war. one of my favorite stories that i love to tell my friends is that lincoln ordered the dome to continue as a symbol that the nation would continue, and that story turns out to be false. >> matt wasniewski: yeah. ( laughter ) >> pelley: matt wasniewski, a historian for the house, told us it was the contractor-- janes, fowler kirtland of new york-- that resumed work without pay. they'd delivered 1.3 million pounds of cast iron and didn't want to see it rust away. lincoln didn't mind. >> wasniewski: he has the famous

line that, if the people see the capitol going on, it will be a sign that we intend the union shall go on. >> pelley: this is the rotunda. you're walking between statues of washington and jefferson. it's just off this room that you find the office of the speaker of the house, john boehner, who administers a lot of what he calls the "campus." do you ever not look up? do you ever take this for granted? >> john boehner: never. listen, for a guy who grew up mopping floors in my dad's bar, it's pretty humbling experience. >> pelley: you've come up in the world. >> boehner: just a little. >> pelley: we went up in the world from the floor of george washington's original capitol to the heights of the inner dome. >> boehner: i told you it'd be beautiful up here. >> pelley: this is the apotheosis of washington by constantino brumidi. i understand that, somewhere in here, the artist painted the face of the architect who designed the dome.

>> boehner: it's right over here. >> pelley: thomas walter is the one in the long white beard. >> boehner: yes. >> pelley: the scenes depict american hard work and ingenuity. and 180 feet below, 21st century citizens look up at washington rising at the center of the city laid down by him and urban planner pierre l'enfant. >> ayers: look how l'enfant laid out this city with these radiating streets-- maryland and pennsylvania and new jersey and delaware. >> pelley: the capitol right in the center... >> ayers: right in the middle. >> pelley: ...and everything proceeds from here. >> ayers: and you put the capitol atop this hill. and that's how you create this iconic symbolism. >> pelley: it was a symbol for the whole nation that the union would endure. now, your job is to make the dome endure. up here, you can see what is hidden from a distance. the dome is falling apart. your guys bring in pieces into the office and say, "hey, boss, here's what i found"? >> ayers: you can see the level

of rust behind it that is just eating away at the cast iron. >> pelley: even worse, there are more than 1,300 serious cracks in the dome. architect stephan ayers is starting a massive repair project. he showed us how they'll cover the dome with scaffolding for the next two years, replace the rusted parts, and stitch the cracks together with metal sutures. minority leader nancy pelosi helped congress put up nearly $60 million for the work. a lot of people think that you guys can't agree about anything. and yet, everybody came around to the idea of refurbishing the dome. >> nancy pelosi: this capitol belongs to the american people. it is this place for them to visit. it is the most identifiable symbol of democracy that there is. >> pelley: on december 2, 1863, the dome was topped with the statue of freedom. and below, congress had been working on freedom, too. it'd passed an emancipation act

for the district of columbia. when philip reid helped cast the statue of freedom, he was a slave. by the time it's placed on top of the dome, he's a free man. >> bunch: he is free. what happens to him is that he symbolizes so many of the enslaved african-americans who looked at that dome and saw it as a place of possibility, saw it as a place that said "here is the freedom that we deserve." >> pelley: the titanic struggle that crowned the capitol is largely forgotten now... >> boehner: the house will be in order. >> pelley: ...but next time you look on political gridlock and wonder whether anything can get done, remember how much can rise above the fractured politics of washington. >> the motion is adopted. the most free research reports, customizable charts, powerful screening tools,

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>> simon: ever heard of a town built on a garbage dump? we hadn't until last year when we visited a community on the

outskirts of asuncion, the capital of the tiny, impoverished south american country of paraguay. it's called cateura and there is trash everywhere-- in its streets, its rivers, in people's backyards. but we decided to take you to cateura tonight not because of the poverty or the filth, but because of the incredible imagination and ingenuity of the people who live there. our story. as we first reported last november, is also a reminder that, ultimately, music will triumph everywhere and anywhere. garbage is the only crop in cateura. and the harvest lasts 12 months a year. it is cateura's curse, its livelihood, and the only reason people live here-- it provides hundreds of jobs to peasant farmers who were kicked off their plots by large landowners.

they are the trash pickers. it is their profession. they sift through the stench 24 hours a day, scrounging for anything they can sell. ten cents for a pound of plastic, five cents for a pound of cardboard. you'll be amazed at what else people here are doing with this trash. just look and listen. ♪ ♪ this is the recycled orchestra of cateura. the violins are fashioned from oven trays, the cellos from oil barrels. even the strings are recycled. the saxophones and trumpets are made from old drain pipes. the keys were once coins and bottle caps.

this drum skin used to be an x- ray plate. the guitar from dessert tins. the idea came from environmental technician favio chavez. when he came to cateura and saw the kids working and playing on this miserable hill, he came up with the idea of starting a music school to lift the kids' lives out of the trash. from the start, favio realized that even if he could raise the money, new instruments were out of the question. a factory-made violin would cost more than a house here, and would almost certainly get stolen. but these fiddles aren't worth a dime. they are the handiwork of trash worker and carpenter don colaá gomez. three days a week, he goes to the dump to find the raw materials. then, in his tiny workshop at the edge of the dump, he goes to

work. favio first asked him to make a violin. but this stradivarius of south america had never seen one or heard one. do you realize how unusual it is? >> don colá gomez( translated ): yes, that's the way it is. when you need something, you need to do whatever it takes to survive. >> simon: he was soon making three violins a week. then cellos, and finally guitars, drums, and double basses, all out of trash. ♪ ♪ take a look and listen to what colaá has created. ♪ ♪ 15-year-old ada rios has been playing for four years now. today, she is the orchestra's first violinist. the first time you went and saw the orchestra, you saw all these instruments with all these different colors. were you surprised when you learned that they were made from

trash? >> ada rios ( translated ): yes. i was very surprised because i had thought that trash was useless. but thanks to the orchestra, i now realize that there are so many different things that can be done with the stuff. >> simon: cateura didn't exist before paraguay's capital asuncion started dumping its trash here. the town grew up around the garbage and became one of the poorest places in south america. 2,500 families live here now. there is hardly any electricity or plumbing. the drinking water is contaminated. many of the children move from broken homes to crime and drugs. but ada and her younger sister noelia, who plays the cello, say that music has become their salvation, the centerpiece of their lives. and who do they have to thank for that? their grandmother mirian. she is a garbage worker-

collects bottles in the streets of asuncion, carries them back to cateura to sell. ten cents a pound. three years ago, mirian saw a notice advertising free music lessons for children. that's how it all began. why did you want them to learn music? >> mirian rios ( translated ): because i always wanted to be a musician or play an instrument. actually, i wanted to be a singer. sometimes, our dreams do come true-- maybe not in our lives, but through people that we love very much. >> ada rios ( translated ): when i play the violin, i feel like i am somewhere else. i imagine that i'm alone in my own world and forget about everything else around me, and i feel transported to a beautiful place. >> simon: can you describe that beautiful place? >> ada rios: yes. i'm transported to a place that is completely different to where i am now.

it has clear skies, open fields, and i see lots of green. it's clean with no trash. there is no contamination where we live. it's just me alone playing my violin. >> simon: every saturday, this drab schoolyard is transformed into a multi-colored oasis of music. the kids flock here to learn and to play. ♪ ♪ cateura is a long way from julliard, but these music students are just as dedicated as those prodigies in new york. ♪ ♪ and they don't get rained on like the kids here. paraguay is in the tropics, and you are reminded of that all the time.

but the band plays on. the veterans-- 15-year-olds-- are teaching the novices. many are barely big enough to hold a violin. the music can't compete with the downpour, but there is refuge in a classroom. ♪ ♪ favio chavez says that music teaches the kids respect and responsibility, not common commodities in the gang-ridden streets of cateura. >> favio chavez ( translated ): these values are completely different to those of gangs. if these kids love being part of the orchestra, they are absolutely going to hate being part of a gang. ♪ ♪

>> simon: for the first time, the children are getting out of cateura, performing around the country. and to chavez, the pied piper of paraguay, that's the most important thing-- they are being seen, they are being heard. >> chavez: these are children that were hidden. nobody even knew they existed. we have put them on a stage, and now everybody looks at them and everybody knows they exist. >> simon: that's mainly because of a documentary that's being made about the orchestra called "landfill harmonic." 18 months ago, the producers put their trailer up on youtube. it went viral. the orchestra began getting bookings worldwide. it is such stuff as dreams are made on. ( cheers and applause ) the film, which follows their

remarkable journey through concert halls in europe and america, will only be released later this year, but already, instruments are being donated. and that's not all-- the kids are getting help. ♪ ♪ paraguay's most famous musician, berta rojas, flies down regularly from her home in maryland to offer master classes. remember noelia, ada's sister, the cellist? berta is teaching her how to play the guitar. >> berta rojas: this is a... a story that is filling my heart and my soul with... with so much inspiration. >> simon: when you first heard them play, what went through your mind? >> rojas: i couldn't believe that you could make music with trash. i couldn't believe it. and i thought, "oh, my god, this is the best thing that had

happened in paraguay in so many years." >> simon: and when you talk to the parents, you hear what you hear from poor people everywhere. they want their kids to have a better life than they've had. jorge rios is ada and noelia's father. if she becomes a professional musician, she'd probably be leaving town. how would you react to that? >> jorge rios ( translated ): yes, the truth is, if you asked that question to every parent here, they would say they would leave this place if they could. i, of course, would like her to have a better life than the one i've had. and if she leaves, i hope she takes me with her! >> simon: what's hard to believe is that most of the parents and the people of cateura had never heard the children play.

that was about to change. a concert was finally scheduled. there were banners in the streets, the local radio station was ready to broadcast. the church was transformed into a concert hall. the children wore their finest. this was, after all, opening night. ( applause ) it could have been new york. ( playing "new york, new york" ) all the students were on stage for the finale. some of the musicians were performing after just one rehearsal. ♪ ♪ the parents were proud, of course. but just listen to the girls' grandma, mirian. >> mirian rios ( translated ): i would say it's a blessing from god. people used to humiliate us and

call us "trash pickers." today, they are more civilized. they call us the "recyclers." so i feel that this is a reward from god-- that our children, who come from this place, can play beautiful music in this way. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> simon: and here's a final note from the recycled orchestra of cateura. "go on, send us your garbage. we'll send it back to you as music." ( musical flourish ) ( cheers and applause ) >> simon: in the last few months, the orchestra has been touring. in south america, it played before tens of thousands as an opener for the heavy metal group

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