After the Workshop: ¿Am You Went to Lima?

I’m not sure how our Quechua hosts got through a week of listening to our Spanish without ever once plugging their ears, but they did. We didn’t really get into the habit of checking such things as subject-verb agreement and what are the proper suffixes for subjunctive until our last day in the country, and were we ever surprised at what we found! Martín, Samuel, and Rosa deserve combat pay for what they endured.

Anyway, our last day in Peru began early. Samuel called a taxi and then went with us to be sure we’d arrive at the airport by 5:15 for our 7:15 flight. We hated to leave, but we were eager to get home.

Martín met us at the airport and took us to breakfast at a very nice pastry shop.

What to do with the fifteen hours until we need to be back at the airport? How about a visit to the Indian museum?

While we were having breakfast, we discovered that Martín and one of the workshop participants had an acquaintance in common, so off we trundled for a visit.

Francisco and Carmen Castañeda have run a music school from the bottom two stories of their three-story home for 25 years. Their goal is to train church musicians to be both competent musicians – performers, composers, directors, and arrangers – and willing servants. God has allowed them to branch out to three other countries, including the United States.

Hmm, what next? How about back to the local tourist trap market for some “genuine” Quechua musical instruments? Actually, the ones on the shelf didn’t say they were made in China, so maybe they really were genuine. At any rate, if Ginny ever gets the chance, she can learn to play the Andean pan pipes and flute.

The next stop was at Martín’s mother’s house to meet his kids. His wife was out of town for the day on business, so this was a bit of a different day at Grandma’s for them.

And finally, a last visit to the park downtown to see the hang gliders. We could have had a 40-minute ride for only $20, but … um, let’s see … it was cold outside. That was why we didn’t do it.

At that point we had to admit defeat – we couldn’t put off going to the airport any longer. So we got there with time to kill before we could check in, then time to kill before the flight, and at 1 am we took off to come home.