This is Pavel outside his workshop in Santa Maria, a puebla just outside of Cuernavaca.  I met Pavel last Friday night at El Manojo.

Pavel is a Laudero, a person that makes instruments.  En íngles = luthier.

This is his taller.  Taller = workshop.

We played a bunch and he gave me a great lesson in the basic rhythms of jarocha.  A funny moment happened when he was talking about playing in 6/8 time.  As the beginning he used the phrase "sies octavos" which I took to mean six octaves.

I didn't understand what he was talking about, but I kept thinking, "Six octaves.  Wow.  That's a lot."

About five minutes later after much more miscommunication, "Oh.  6/8 time.  Yes, I understand that."  Very funny.

One thing that I didn't expect was for me to go through the beginning process of making a jarana.  This is going to be a mosquito - a very small jarana.

In addition, I really appreciated the patience he had with my lack of español.  It's still very frustrating that I can't say so much, and it takes so long for me to understand anything other than the simplest statements and questions.  I think we were both pretty wore out by the end, but it got done.  I was very glad to get to know him and his work and I hope we stay in touch.