The next post from my daughter.
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Ciudad Blanca
Below is part three of the Andes series. Part two of the series is The Mountains. Looking back, I was very upset with people who considered the only “important” thing to be “progress” and would completely ignore history if possible. But to someone who has been where history lives, ignoring it seems to take the beauty out of life.
Misti, Chachani, and PichuPichu, the three volcanoes that surround Arequipa. By far the dominant one is Misti, and it first catches your eye. Visible from anywhere in the city, the tall peak is covered with snow and surrounded by a constatn cloud. At times the cloud is thick, making it seem as if the whole mountain is just in your imagination. At others, the swirling of the mist makes it seem as if the volcano is erupting again. Yet other times, the mist clears and leaves a beautiful, picture perfect moment, belying the dangers that the dormant volcano holds. Look again, though, and you will realize that the jagged crest holds no promise of benevolence on behalf of the human population living below it in calm content. While dormant now, this majestic volcano has, and will, continue to make life lively for the city’s inhabitants.
Unlike Misti, both Chachani and PichuPichu are extinct. This, however, does not stop them from being beautiful. Comprised of multiple peaks, these two volcanic mountains are, like Misti, topped with snow. It is as if the very tips of all these mountains had been covered with a light frosting of powdering just for effect. Not in many, many years has anyone in Peru met an actual snowflake, and at that, it was not much and buried deep in childhood memories of the “one time it happened to me” region. The snow glitters in the early morning sunlight and the volcanoes, especially Misti, are framed perfectly by the glowing rays. Living beneath such grandeur day after day by no means makes it mundane or detracts from the dangerous beauty of the peaks. Nature has a way of reminding the inhabitants of Peru that she is still there. Temblores, tremors, are a constant factor of life in Arequipa. Daily life does not stop unless there is an actual earthquake, and then not for long, simply long enough to pick up the dead and wounded and continue on. Voluntad de Dios, the will of God.
Shift your gaze now from the mountains down to the city, to Arequipa, Ciudad Blanca, the White City. It sprawls across the whole valley that these three volcanoes create and creeps up into the foothills. Bustling and full, yet relaxed and untroubled by the passage of time, it combines all sorts of architecture, from the simple to the complex, from the old to the new. Next to each other you will find houses with three walls and a roof of corrugated tin, a house of adobe (mud bricks), a house of cement, and a house of sillar (volcanic rock). Stop for a moment and think… this city has been around almost as long as the constitution of the United States of America, and unlike most cities in the USA, it has kept its history and as you walk along the streets you will see it portrayed in everything you pass. Think for a moment… what is progress if we leave our past behind? If we lose our identity, will it help to rush on as fast as we can? When was the last time you were in a building that could compare your lifetime to the blink of an eye?
But listen, can you hear the music that’s floating up here to where we are standing now? Folkloric music of the type that puts to shame our modern and contemporary music. Music older than old, that is found in the roots of the mountains and by some chance is found and caughtup by a human and taken back to others. Music that creates images of far away lands, beautiful places, stirring your blood and heart. Music that is part of the call, sometimes accompanied by words, sometimes no words can do justice to the call. Does it really matter what they say? Not in the least. They speak of love of the land, pride of being born in this place, of beauty, of mystery, but even were you not to understand it (and well you might not), just listen… is it tugging at you yet? Instruments not really known to the northern “civilized” world, these have been around forever and are capable of making you feel more than any electric guitar ever could. The zampoña- reed pipes that vary from a handsbreadth to being as large as a human being, the quena- a wooden flutelike instrument, the charango- looks to be a miniature guitar or something like a banjo, but emits sounds much finer than any banjo ever could, the bombo- a large base frame drum covered with animal hide, the cascabeles- rather like a large bunch of seed pods that are shaken for rhythm. Can you hear it? Listen, it’s getting louder…
[more to follow…]
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