Present for you

December 27 at 5:15 AM

Dear all, thank you for keeping up with me, and here is your Christmas present. Well I’m really just passing on what God has given me.  It wasn’t Christmas day but at any rate it was during the festive times.  I went on a paseo with Delicia and Guisela, determined to see the Santiagueño morning and we were rewarded. God’s gifts have been sporadic, or that’s what I think anyways, but my schedule doesn’t really mean anything to God.  This is what I have taken from my gift: I am reminded to expect God’s presents in no time in particular, or rather be in a state of constant expectation but never disappointment for not receiving or not realizing that I have received, since I wasn’t expecting this to be a gift from God but just pleasure for my eyes. Now I realize that I have God to thank for this present. Here I give it to you along with this message.

Peter

God bless

Terror

December 25 at 6:20 PM

This is the little terror that I have to deal with during vacations in Santiago and whenever Willy and Dica’s son comes to visit in Santa Cruz.  This is their grandson, Andres. If he isn’t throwing things on the floor, running around hitting you, or the dog, or the parrots he is pushing around his little truck.  And don’t you dair to even get close to his truck or his trike because he will only scream and holler mine mine mine!  But even little terrors have their good sides, he can be fun at times and smiles, and calls everyone (except his parents) aunt.  But that is what is great about kids (especially my students) they make you smile enough you have to keep going to class and teaching them even if they are terrible at times.

Peter

God bless

Under the Mango

December 23 at 11:30

This is the students favorite spot to practice.  They tend to sit out here and ignore Kristen or myself as we urge them into the classroom for the rehearsal.  For me the mango tree is like the simble of the tropics, enourmus magestic and gives amazing fruit.  But you have to wait for the fruit to fall, if you wait to long it will fall and usually spoil if you don’t get it right away.  Or you have to throw things at it, the kids will do this for hours, just stand around and hurl things up in the trees (rocks, sticks old mangos) and hope that another, hopefully ripe, mango will come down as they all run out of the way of the hurled object and if they were lucky, the mango that comes crashing down.

Peter
God bless

The organ monster

December 22 at 10:35 AM

I have been fiddling around with the organ trying to get it in playing condition for the concert and mass on the 24th.  The Barckhoff is still getting accustomed to the climate here so it takes regular maintenance and just messing around.  Today I was inside working on it and heard a strange noise.  Now, the Barckhoff makes all sorts of strange organs but this one was not very organ like.  I ignored it and kept on trying to get rid of the ciphers in the treble of the great.  I heard it again and it was followed by a clankity clank which I determined to be something messing around inside the organ besides myself.  It was coming from the pedal mechanical action because the clankity clank was carbon fiber clanking on carbon fiber.  I wiggled out of the organ and looked around from behind and their was Filomenas little cat on a great adventure through the Barckhoff Jungle.  I snapped a picture of here stepping around the pedal stop action that Edymilson and I had made and then threw her out so I could keep working.  But came back sneakily persistent to find out what this contraption was all about.  At least now I feel comfortable that their will be no problem with mice nesting in the Barckhoff.

Peter

God bless

Tucavaca

December 20 at 9:26 AM

I went up on another visit to the cerro (or the hill) last weekend with Kristen, Delicia and her nephew.  It was a nice break to get out and walk around and feel the breeze.  It was also interesting to see the valley of River Tucavaca (to the right of the cliffs that you see in the photo).  It is still mostly fairly pristine since it has been a municipal nature reserve for the last 5 years and before that their have only been a few people that have properties down in the valley.  From the top of the hill you can really only see the road and three small properties the rest is a sea of green, supposedly one of the best preserved hard wood tropical forests in the world.  The sad thing is that the national government has recently split up the whole western section of valley reserve to hand out to Bolivia’s so they can have their little farm or chaquear (burn and cut down forest) to make a patch of green for cattle).  It is true that Bolivia has had one of the worst records for land distribution (in that a small percentage of people own a huge percentage of land) but it makes my head spin when they (the national government wants to redistribute land that has been designated as of 5 years ago with a $1,000,000.00 jump start grant from the European Union a nature reserve managed by the municipality (with help from the department) and this also was the first of its kind in all of Latin America (a municipal nature reserve).  About 70% of it will still remain intact but the bummer is that the rest of it is mountains the valley itself (where the name comes from and all the hardwood is) will be split in two, one still reserve and the other farm land/cattle ranching if things go as planned).  The upside is that there is no electricity, no running water, no phone, no cell phone and no paved roads to the valley so maybe that might discourage as much people from following through… but we shall see.

Peter
God bless

Organ

December 11 at 1:27 PM

One of the joys of going and working some in Santa Ana was actually going and getting to know and practice the baroque organ.  It was built in the late eighteenth century by Padre Martin Schmid (the priest from Concepción).  It is a precious little instrument that sits up in the choir loft, and was restored back in 2000 by a French organ builder and that is when Amado Cadena got his start on organ building.

The little pueblo

December 11 at 11:43 AM

Santa Ana is similar to Santiago in several ways such as size, distance from neighboring towns, and lack of other things to do but soccer and orchestra.  Only thing is that Santiago is a lot farther ahead in their organization as far as tourism goes, since they have hotels, restaurants and the like.  In Santa Ana I did find a place to stay, they have these little place that they call shelters, really they are just folks who have a spare room and Don Lucho, the man who is the caretaker of the church and the organ was happy to let me stay.  Their was no one in the town who wanted to fix me meals except when I spoke with Don Lucho’s wife and she was willing to fix lunches.  Don Lucho lives with his daughter and her five kids (three of which are in the orchestra, coming from their grandfather who is one of the old timey violinists of the pueblo).  Here is one of the youngest (a twin) who has not started in the orchestra but I assume will start on viola or something soon.

Concepción

December 7 at 8:17 PM

The night of the tricentennial festival was a pretty big deal, their was a huge celebration mass and I of coarse folk found out that I had sound engineering skills and was promptly exploited, and ran sound that night and the next day when the Cardinal showed up to give mass. The orchestra and choir played selections during both masses and I helped out and sang tenor in the choir, and at some point during the night while I was running back and forth from my place with the tenors and the little sound console in the sacristy I caught a glimpse of the bell tower in the Concepción night.

Dario

December 6 at 12:01 AM

This is a little while back but, at any rate I should mention it the same. The people that I have encountered during my time in Bolivia have been quite phenomenal and I believe I have not spent enough of my time giving them the voice that they deserve. Dario and Magy are two Argentineans that have been traveling around Bolivia off and on for the last several years I first met them when I was inside the organ messing around with the pedal tracker action. They had been tipped off by a friend that their was this organ that was to be inaugurated and they decided to take some of their traveling time and stop by Santiago. I ran into them again in Concepción, they had been helping Javier (the Argentinean orchestra and choir director in Concepción who had been a fellow student from university) while they took a little brake from traveling around. I worked along side of them, and Javier for that week and a half. It is an amazing experience exchanging stories, opinions, joyous occasions and lamentable ones with fellow young folks.

Vicariato Workshop

December 4, 1:50PM

One of the wonderful things in Concepción is the legacy left by the architect Hans Roth and the workshop that he had built while they were designing and re-building the mission.  Now it is a school that includes furniture making, wood working, carving, mechanics and more.  Here is one of the students working on wood carving.

Peter
God bless