CHICAGO — The morning we drove to O’Hare International Airport to meet Vasco after his 30-plus-hour flight from Malawi, my husband and I turned on the car stereo and hit play on the CD in the six-disc changer. What came up was Paul Simon’s album, “Graceland.”

“These are the days of miracle and wonder,

This is the long-distance call,

The way the camera follows us in slow-mo

The way we look to us all.”

Those are the words from “The Boy in the Bubble,” the first track on Simon’s 1986 album, which has long been one of my favorites. It seemed appropriate — prophetic, even — traveling music for the short trip to the airport that ended a 20-month effort to bring Vasco, the 10-year-old AIDS orphan we had met in Malawi, to Chicago for life-saving heart surgery.

On our way home from O’Hare, while Vasco rode in the back seat, watching wide-eyed as this strange, new land passed by, the words of the album’s eponymous song, “Graceland,” took on a new meaning for me.

“Poor boys and Pilgrims with families

And we are going to Graceland …”

In those first days with Vasco in our home, we had very little common language, but we did have music. When Vasco arrived, he knew two “American” stars and asked about them: Barack Obama and Bob Marley. (He sometimes confused the two, pointing to the late dreadlocked Jamaican musician and asking, “Obama?”)

One night at dinner a few weeks ago, apropos of nothing and clear out of the blue, Vasco pounded a little fist to his narrow chest and said, “Jah Rastafari!” saluting the air.

“Where did that come from, little man?” I asked.

Mac, Vasco’s caregiver from Malawi, explained that many of the street children in Malawi idolized Marley and Rastafarian culture. Vasco, who lived on the streets when he was 6 or 7 after his parents died from AIDS, picked it up there.

He knows Marley’s music, that’s for sure. Whenever Vasco hears the strains of “One Love,” “Buffalo Soldier,” or “Natural Mystic,” he nods and bops around. When he’s got his three-quarter-size acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, he strums and sings along.

Music is pure joy for this magical little boy. It’s the language we both know by heart, even if we can’t find the right words to say so in my English or his Chichewa.

When he cried inconsolably, coming out of a haze of anesthesia after a cardiac catheterization last week, I quietly sang a few lines of Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” into his ear. When he went back into the hospital three days later, feverish and listless, I played a recording of Marley’s “No More Trouble” from my laptop next to his hospital bed. The music is comfort. A salve. For Vasco — and for us.

We’re still waiting for Vasco’s doctors to set a date for his open-heart surgery, which has been delayed while miracle medicines work to clear his blood of malaria, tuberculosis and parasites. So we’re passing the time playing soccer and T-ball in the back yard, watching movies, going fishing and listening to music.

Recently we discovered a marvelous new CD and DVD set called “Playing for Change: Songs Around the World.” Released at the end of April, the set contains video and audio recordings of songs performed — simultaneously — by musicians from around the world. The songs include the popular standard “Stand By Me,” Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” and Marley’s “One Love.”

There are tip-seeking performers in Santa Monica, Calif., sitar players in India and a teen choir from Northern Ireland. Not to mention a traditional singing group in South Africa; street musicians in France, Congo, Nepal and Cuba; Bono in his Dublin studio; and a Native American drum circle. They all perform the same song, which producer Mark Johnson then mixes into a seamless global collaboration.

Some of the proceeds from “Playing for Change” are helping to build music schools in Africa for children much like Vasco. He has watched the DVD of the performances dozens of times (you can find them on YouTube or at http://www.playingforchange.com), and we listen to the music daily.

On bad days, it makes us all feel better.

On good days, it reminds us of how much we share, even when our language, culture, religion and skin color are different.

“One love, One heart

Let’s get together and feel all right!”

(Cathleen Falsani is the author of “Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace” and the upcoming “The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers.”)