Me and the Star Spangled Banner in Rinconada Llicuar

I went to visit my site last week. It will be in bajo Piua and the welcome was very intense. People were amazing. There are so many details that I could share, but basically the first morning I got up and led a parade of small children carrying musical instruments and a paper American flag that they had made. Then at the municipal building all of the local officials gave speeches, the Chief of Police, the Justice of Peace, the Mayor; it was crazy. I also had to make a speech introducing myself and thanking them for inviting me. It was incredibly humbling. I hvae no idea how I'm going to live up to all of this. It seems like a lot of expectations.

They raised the Peruvian flag and sang the Peruvian national anthem and then someone had SEWN an American flag and they wanted me to sing the Star Spangled banner. I SANG the Star Spangled Banner out loud to 150 people!!! Yes here I am, in Peru, doing things I don't usually do. I don't even really know all the words, but fortunately they don't either and there wasn't a microphone. Then, since the entire elementary school was there, the kids dressed up in traditional dress and did dances typical of different regions of Peru. They also had a Huayno band playing. Huayno is a traditional Peruvian musicand bands have names like Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, but they play a dance music that includes a big drum, trumpet, guitar, and other instruments that we have seen before in the US. I can't even describe what it sounds like. I haven't heard anything like it before.

These little girls were in a performance of the same dances a few nights later in the nearby larger town of Sechura. They did a great job. They're only first graders, but they preform in front of big crowds of strangers.


27 people, yes 27 including: 15 4th graders, 6 first graders, 1 infant, other adults and me piled into a four door flatbed pickup truck to drive the half hour to Sechura. It was the most people I've ever seen crammed into one truck. Fun times in Piura. More soon.