The Charango
In this nuanced essay, Valerie Argentina Calvo writes of her father and of the power of music and violence in their family.
I can see him. He stands proud, with his shoulders back; he’s short and stocky like a pitbull. His voice is just as proud as his posture, loud and deep, with a thick, warm, Andean accent. His wide jaw and square head make him look stern when his face is resting. But my dad is a performer, so his face is not often resting. Most of the time it is in a wide, amicable grin. He holds the neck of the charango in his left hand, and his right hand strokes it, smoothing down the hair, as though it were still living. His big hand covers almost its entire body.
In my earliest memories my family had only one charango. It was the traditional kind, formed from the shell of an armadillo, the hair on the back still growing. When he introduced the instrument to someone new, my father always joked, When the hair gets too long I have to give the charango a haircut! The charango lived above the piano, right by the front door, hung by the neck so my father could easily play it. It was part of a sort-of mural my dad had created by hanging his instruments on the wall.
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