My mother has some friends she knows from school with whom she likes to organize short trips every once in a while. This year, they planned to visit their teacher from 50+ years ago, Mimiya, who has a huge, peaceful house in Petaluma, Cachipay, less than 2 hours away from Bogotá. They also wanted their families to join them and share a nice time for a couple of days.
The gathering would include some musical activity and I was invited to sing/play but had lost my voice earlier that week so I couldn’t prepare anything for the couple of “gigs” that were planned.
Anyways, I never imagined it was going to be such a beautiful evening, thanks to the amazing voices of Audrey Callahan (who is the daughter of Cecilia, one of my mother’s friends) and her friend Erin, as well as the nice surprises that several groups of local children had prepared for us. Mimiya’s hospitality, along with all the other nuns that work in the house we stayed in, made our stay quite pleasant. Also visiting from the US, were Audrey’s husband, Shane, and his cousin, Stu. They were joined by some other friends and we were a group of 15 people.
On Monday morning we went to the Centro Dia del Adulto Mayor, where more than 50 people with mental disabilities were invited to see Audrey performing several famous songs (Selena, Shakira, M. Anthony), which inspired many of the attendees to stand up, dance, and sing.
Erin delighted the audience with her rendition of “La Bamba” as well as other classic covers (I regret not having more videos of her performance), and Shane also stepped in a couple of times. The reaction of the public was very positive and the singers were pleased with the whole experience. The energy of the whole place was so contagious and I felt glad for being able to be there and see everyone in such a good mood.
Later on, after having lunch and a sweet, necessary nap, we gathered inside the school’s auditory for different live presentations that ended up with everyone (the children’s parents, their teachers, the workers, and the guests from the US) dancing together. I can’t feel more grateful and honored for having been invited to witness all these artistic expressions. You could tell everyone put on a lot of love for their performances, and again, seeing everyone so happy (at least for a couple of hours) is just priceless.
There was a nice sing-along presentation by the younger children, who were dressed as angels, followed by a short play with other kids, a couple of years older, who had animal costumes. It was so funny because it was the typical fable where the protagonist, a motherless chicken, is rejected by everyone except the last, which was a frog, who was supposed to say “Yes, I’ll be your mother”. However, the little girl who played the frog refused to say “Yes” and hug the chicken, and even stepped down from the stage pouting, despite all the teachers trying to convince her to do what was planned. I didn’t record any of that but was genuinely moved by the voices of the 3 girls in the next presentation.
Before I said it was a beautiful evening thanks to the voices of Audrey and Erin, because as soon as they started singing the whole vibe was so inspiring and the local people were just delighted with them, me included. However, there’s something in the voice of the three girls, and maybe the song itself, that makes me feel nostalgic or something like that. Rewatching those videos motivated me to write this post.
Afterwards, we saw at least three different folklore performances from the same dancing group. A couple of the dancers of this group are getting ready to participate in an international competition. They were also great.
There was of course the larger ensemble that included the three girls who sang and played percussion, a couple of guitars, electric bass, keyboards, and a drummer, as well as other children/grown-ups who also did percussion and backing vocals. Most of them weren’t even teenagers and the two guitarists, who seem to be their teachers, also directed them. The main guitarist and singer is Luis Fernando Muñoz, who hosted the whole event at the school and later on was the DJ/singer in a bar we went to during the night. He wanted to sing with Audrey and I got to record a little of that in the last video. The trip to Cachipay was yet another adventure, full of memories about places.