A musical goodbye

You know sometimes you meet someone and you just become instant friends? That is what happened with us and Mark, a South African guy we met at our hostel in Buenos Aires a couple of months ago. He is traveling around South America for a year surfing. Fortunately for us, fate brought us together once again when he spent the last month or so in Rio.

Last week, he took off for Colombia to complete the last 2 months of his trip so we were invited to a going away party for him at the place he was staying. The people he stayed with are all musicians and we spent the whole night listening, singing, and attempting to play the various instruments they had lying around. One was a metal bucket that they had drilled screws into so you could play it like a drum. There was also a small keyboard that worked like an accordion with a plastic tube you would blow into while pushing the keys. I managed to remember part of my 7 years of piano training but would forget to blow on the tube to make it play!



The night ended with Mark playing American Pie on the guitar and everyone crowding around him to sing at full voice. It was spectacular and a wonderful way to send off a good friend that I hope to see again, sometime, somewhere.