Vincent came in from the bathroom very early this morning with an ashen face. No, it's not Ash Wednesday. He opened the door to our room, and two wild cats leaped straight from the bed in the room next door, sailed over the wall and onto the tin roof below. He was startled out of his wits. Carlos is not very fond of these two cats, but they hang out here, draping themselves over every conceivable surface. I am guessing that the tin roof is not very hot, as I see them lolling there as relaxed as rag dolls. The four dogs don't even give them a second glance.
After breakfast this morning, we helped Carlos cut out lengths of fabric. He has a very cool machine that allows him to roll lengths of fabric back and forth on a long table, making layers and layers of fabric. He can then use a power cutter to cut out patterns for dozens and dozens of garments at once. We didn't get to see this in operation this morning, every dress was cut out one by one, because that's what this type of fabric demands. We had a good laugh over my pair of scissors, which was so dull it practically gnawed through the cloth. My mother used to say, "I could do a better job than these scissors with my teeth!" I found a Fiskars cutter online to show Carlos which he found very cool indeed.
We had a Skype conversation with Megan and the others at the home office and then had lunch. We took a lot of photos, and took a walk out toward the Peguche falls. It was too far to go before dark, but we meandered through the streets and watched the city lights come on in neighboring Otavalo. We were charmed by the little boy playing soccer in the dusk shouting to his friends to watch out for the "abuelita," -- me, the gray-haired grandmother.
After supper, Vincent showed Carlos some of Riverdance and other Irish music on YouTube, as Carlos has a keen interest in music, especially traditional Andean music. With gentle coaxing, he was persuaded to demonstrate some of his collection of instruments--the quena, zampoña, bandolin and violin. He remembered going to Europe or the U.S. with handfuls of these instruments, giving them away before returning to Ecuador to avoid having to carry them. You couldn't do that now, he relates ruefully, they're much too expensive to give away!
It was so interesting to hear traces of Asian harmonies and structures in the music which has been brought forward from pre-Colombian times. Some of the instruments, like the violin, are European. The flutes and zampoñas are indigenous. You see so much mixing of cultures in formerly colonial countries--well, any country really, as the realities of conflict and migration intrude the world over, writing and rewriting music, poetry, painting, history, fashions and even gene scripts. One person told us her father was Chinese, her mother Ecuadorean. Africans marry Colombians and move to Ecuador, their children go to university and work in the U.S.
It's such a kaleidoscopic whirl--languages, cultures, colors, birds and plants, colors and tastes of exotic fruits. Sometimes I long for a quiet space in which to contemplate it all. Peguche is a really beautiful place. I can see why Carlos and Sulema love it. A big Andean music festival just finished here before we came, the Pawki Raymi. The big names in Andean music all come, and treat everyone to world-class music. Their daughter Saya wants to go to Yachay University (brand new, a government show piece mostly still under construction on a huge piece of land) to be an engineer. I wonder where her journey will take her?
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