Look who we met at Cerámicos Seminario. Pablo Seminario, himself. He kindly took a picture with us! Will, Peter, Grammy (Ruth), David, Pablo Seminario, Sarah, Allison, Annie

We have not had any reliable access to internet that would handle the bandwidth that a computer needs, and therefore, no blogging was done while we took Will’s mother sightseeing through the Sacred Valley.  The Sacred Valley has lots of Inca Ruins and it is beautiful just because God made it that way.  So we have been a few times, because it is the place to go if visitors from the U.S. come to see us in Curahuasi.  I find it humorous that our kids (who in general are good sports about these trips) will get tired during the trips, and as all kids do, get a little bit short tempered with the time it takes.  It reminds me how I might have felt while growing up in Edmond, Oklahoma, and having to accompany my parents as they took guests to the Cowboy Hall of Fame.  But the Cowboy Hall of Fame is incomparable to these ruins.   They are so much grander and more impressive and historical.  They are the apex of the Incan civilization in all its power, but to our kids they are the same old thing.  How easily we become unimpressed with things that are easily accessible when we are young!  This time we looked in our little tour book, and we found a ceramic workshop founded by a man named Pablo Seminario and his wife, Marilú Behar, located in Urubamba, one of the principal towns of the Sacred Valley; so we decided to visit it for a little change of pace.  We thought it might be nice to see some pottery made.  Well, it was actually quite impressive; the craftsmanship was exceptional, at least to my untrained eye.  It turns out he has some items on display in the Fields Museum in Chicago and the Smithsonian.  As we were buying a few things and some gifts, Pablo, the artist himself, walked into the gallery.  David, who is friendly and willing to talk to anyone, looked up at him and said “Oh hi, Pablo!” as if they were old friends.  And Pablo, not recognizing David, but being a little disconcerted by his friendly, casual greeting, thought maybe they were friends.  We worked through that confusion as he was trying to figure out how he knew us until I finally explained that David is just friendly.  He nicely posed for a picture with all of us, and we walked out with some nice pottery.  Now we are adding Cerámicos Seminario to our Curahuasi visitor hit list.

Part of the workshop

Using the clay given to us during the tour. David made a bunch of little balls that looked like llama droppings.

Spinning

Working with the clay.

Pottery drying before their second firing.

The artists painting the pottery.