Our piano was delivered today. Initially ordered late last year, the piano has taken a full nine months to arrive in Paraguay. We bought it in the United States and had it shipped to Paraguay. It first went to Miami, where it languished in storage for months while we got into a heated exchange with the person in charge here who refused to ship it through an alternate method — as part of a supply shipment instead of a household goods shipment — because we dared to question their judgment (they have since moved on, gracias a Dios). The piano then went by slow boat to Buenos Aires, where it again waited in storage until the rains came and raised the water level high enough to allow a barge bring the piano upriver to Asuncion. Ah, such is life in a place like Paraguay. But now it’s here in our house safe and sound, and all is well. The piano actually made it intact and none the worse for wear — not bad for having gone through quite an odyssey. I think it just needs a tuning.
My wife and son will begin taking piano lessons. Music in the house will be a welcome change. I bought a guitar — the best hand-crafted $50.00 guitar you can buy — and plan to buy a harp. Yes, a harp. Paraguayan harps are amazing. I vowed to learn both and found a teacher who could teach me both harp and piano. I don’t have any time for this, really, but I have to do it. I have to do something to break the monotony of the same-old, same-old. The last instrument I played is a guitar I tried and failed to learn when I was a teenager. My wife and son have never learned an instrument. If we pull this off and make music, we may just be able to have our own family group a la the Partridge Family.
Wow, harp and piano! That sounds great! Learn as much as you can, maybe you can teach me if end up living close again? I can teach you piano as a return. I’m not kidding! 🙂 Say hi to family for us!!!
The Witzels