Teaching and Learning

I am officially designating July as the month of the blog. I have about a dozen entries that have been waiting to be posted, and we just haven't gotten to them, but I want to get them up before August (where did June go?), when we come home. Also, does anyone know anything about programs to backup a blog? We just heard of someone whose entries all vanished one day, unrecoverable, and it makes us a little nervous.

Last week included another trip to San Clemente, and it is an amazing place that for many reasons has struck a chord in me. Once we get pictures from our friends (our camera was stolen on the first trip), I will be posting more.

I have piano students! Four teenagers, Tito, Elsa, Romina and Gianella have all started taking piano lessons once a week, and we are having a great time. There is almost no music education in the schools here, so they are really starting from scratch, with rhythms and note-reading. They are wonderful students, though, extremely eager and patient. If anyone has any resources for beginners in Spanish, it would be very helpful.

On the flip side, I have been going to a weekly lesson to learn the cajón, a native Peruvian percussion instrument. It is just a wooden box which you sit on to play, but from which come a whole world of sounds in the hands of an expert. It serves as the base for all criolla music, native to Lima and the coastal cities, and the Afro-Peru rhythms as well. Besides the obvious musical benefits, I am learning the differences in teaching styles here, which helps considerably as I plan for my students. Noah even has his own mini-cajón, so we enjoy jamming together.